


Those Left Behind

by nickelsandcoats



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-28
Updated: 2011-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:24:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelsandcoats/pseuds/nickelsandcoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of <i>The Great Game</i>, Sherlock is on the hunt for revenge as John waits for Sherlock to join him. But deception abounds as both men struggle to come to terms with the paths their lives have taken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**woodencoyote**](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/)’s Make Me a Monday [prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/sherlockbbc/2179143.html?thread=26053703#t26053703).

**  
_7 April 2010_   
**

Sherlock Holmes came to alone. It took him exactly three minutes to deduce that he was in hospital, on some incredibly powerful painkillers, had a head injury, four broken ribs, a broken arm (left), and more bruises than he could count. They had shaved a portion of his hair above his left ear—the stubble itched terribly, but he was too heavily medicated to care much. He drifted off again. The last thought he had before he sank back into his morphine-induced sleep was _John?_

*

Sherlock jerked back into consciousness with a sharp groan. A doctor, _not John_ his brain supplied, hovered over him. His breath smelled of onions and curry. Sherlock’s nose twitched. Disgusting.

Irritatingly, the doctor leaned closer, flashing a penlight into Sherlock’s eyes. The onion and curry smell was overpowering, and Sherlock’s stomach rolled, and then rebelled at the injustice. He threw up on the doctor’s sleeve.

The doctor jumped back with a cry of disgust before remembering himself and grabbing a towel to wipe Sherlock’s mouth before pressing the button for the nurse.

“Can you get Mr. Holmes a clean gown and blankets?” the doctor asked the nurse who walked in. “I need to change my coat.”

The nurse’s footsteps faded away as the doctor turned back to Sherlock. He smiled kindly and said, “Don’t worry about a thing, Mr. Holmes. It’s a perfectly normal reaction to have after a concussion as severe as the one you have. How are you feeling?”

“Where’s John?”

“I’m sorry?”

“John. John Watson. He would’ve been brought in with me. Where is he?” Sherlock struggled to sit up, setting his heart racing and the monitors shrieking. He gasped in pain as the movement jostled his ribs and he sank back down, wheezing.

“You need to rest, Mr. Holmes. Let us get you cleaned up, and then you need to rest and recover.”

“I’ll rest after I know where John is. Where is he? Is he all right?”

The doctor gave him a sad smile as the nurse bustled back in with her armful of clean bedding and a clean gown.

‘”We’ll speak later, Mr. Holmes, once you’re feeling a bit more up to it.”

The nurse quickly removed the soiled sheets before she gently helped Sherlock change his gown. She efficiently tucked the new, clean sheets around him before heading back out.

Sherlock struggled to sit again as a new nurse came in and injected something into his IV line. “What is that?” he asked as the nurse gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Just a light sedative. The doctor said you needed to rest, and this will help you do that.”

“I want to know where John is. How is he?” Sherlock tried to grasp at the nurse’s arm, but missed. He felt his eyes growing heavy, and he fought against the sweet siren call of the sedative. _I have to know. Why won’t they tell me how he is?_ he thought as he murmured, “Please, just tell me where he is.”

“Sleep, Mr. Holmes. Your brother said he would be here soon to speak with you.”

If Mycroft was coming to talk to him, then it had to be something bad, Sherlock knew that. The last thing he heard before he let the sedative take him under was the strident beeping of the heart monitor as his panic followed him into sleep.

  
*****

 **  
_7 April 2010_   
**

John Watson woke up in worse physical shape than Sherlock, but he struggled to stay awake long enough to learn what had happened to his friend. Then, and only then, could he let himself sleep again. The first thing John saw when his vision swam into focus was the depressingly familiar ceiling of a hospital. The second thing he saw when he looked over at the source of the cleared throat to his right was Mycroft Holmes, perched in a hospital chair and looking slightly discomfited.

“Sherlock?” John slurred, still a little groggy from the sedative. His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth. The sedative was still tugging at his consciousness, threatening to pull him back under. John fought for a few more minutes of wakefulness. He had to know if Sherlock had made it out, that his efforts to save the detective’s life had meant something.

“Is fine.”

John let out his breath in a whoosh. “Where is he?”

“Safe. Just as you are, Doctor Watson.”

John’s eyes closed as he breathed, “Good.”

Mycroft slipped away as John’s breaths evened out and he slept again.

Mycroft looked to Anthea, who was standing just outside the room. “How is Sherlock?”

“He woke for a few minutes. The doctor says he was asking after Doctor Watson, but per your instructions, he revealed nothing.”

“Good.” Mycroft tapped his umbrella on the floor as he turned over potential safehouses and private hospitals. Nodding as he came to his decision, he looked back up at Anthea. “Have John sedated and sent to Edinburgh. Initiate Project Greenhorn, effective immediately.”

Anthea swallowed, eyes glued to her Blackberry as she relayed the code that set the Project in motion. “Yes, sir.”

Mycroft’s eyes softened as he looked at her. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

“Me too, sir,” Anthea replied, giving him a sad smile. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Mycroft stepped around her as he headed down the hall to his brother’s room. If he was going to strip away everything his brother held dear, then he should stand vigil and give the news himself, no matter what the personal cost would be. He opened the door to Sherlock’s room and fought back the lump that threatened to choke him as he saw his normally manic brother lying still and silent under the sheets. He was far too pale, Mycroft noted as he pulled the chair over to his brother’s bedside. Hooking his umbrella carefully on the bedrail, he took his brother’s hand and settled in to wait for Sherlock to wake. Even though he knew he couldn’t do it, Mycroft wished he could keep his brother sedated, living in a dream world where John still lived, where they lived their lives together, until Mycroft’s people could catch this Moriarty, but Mycroft knew that Sherlock was the only one who would ever catch him.

 _I’m sorry for this, Sherlock,_ Mycroft thought as he settled in to wait with a heavy heart, _but this is the only way._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of _The Great Game_ , Sherlock is on the hunt for revenge as John waits for Sherlock to join him. But deception abounds as both men struggle to come to terms with the paths their lives have taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**woodencoyote**](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/)’s Make Me a Monday [prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/sherlockbbc/2179143.html?thread=26053703#t26053703).

**  
_8 April 2010_   
**

Sherlock woke with a gasp, instinctively clutching at the hand that held his. When he caught his breath and shook off the remnants of his nightmare, he turned his head to see Mycroft watching him with a mournful look. Sherlock’s heart sank.

“Where is John?”

Mycroft’s hand tightened around his as he took a deep breath and said, “I’m so sorry, Sherlock, but he didn’t make it.”

“No.” Sherlock struggled to breathe through his distress, setting off his monitors again. “No! No! I won’t believe it. I want to see him! Where is he?”

Mycroft extricated his hand and gripped his brother’s shoulders as Sherlock attempted to sit up, disregarding his broken ribs as he gasped and shivered in pain. Mycroft held him down, shouting “Sherlock!” several times before the worry in his tone finally seemed to cut through Sherlock’s haze of grief. Sherlock sank back, defeated. He looked smaller, somehow, curling into himself as best he could with his broken arm and ribs.

“He asked to be cremated.”

“I know,” Sherlock whispered bitterly. “Has it already been done?”

“Yes. I’ve taken the liberty of finding a plot for a memorial stone.”

Sherlock was silent.

“I’ll see about getting some of his ashes for you before he’s sent to Harriet.”

Mycroft waited for a moment before he continued, “We need to put you in protective custody.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Sherlock, it will only be until you’re well enough to travel and fend for yourself. I will place all of my resources at your disposal. Unless, of course, I am mistaken in my belief that you will be hunting down one James Moriarty?”

Sherlock’s smile showed his teeth as his eyes hardened. Mycroft allowed himself a glimmer of hope. He had been afraid that telling Sherlock John had died would plunge his brother into a depression from which he might not recover, but the risk had to be taken. Now, it seemed as though Sherlock would take his grief and forge it into white-hot revenge.

Mycroft’s answering smile was no less predatory than his brother’s. “Good. You should be released tomorrow. Anthea will take you to a safehouse and provide you with all the information we have collected so far. I will be there as soon as my schedule permits me so we can discuss options.”

Mycroft unhooked his umbrella and stood, smoothing down his jacket. “I will see you tomorrow, Sherlock.” His face softened as he said, “And I am sorry about John.”

Sherlock grunted in response, drawing up the blanket. He waited until Mycroft’s footsteps had faded away before he allowed the tears to fall.

*****

 **  
_9 April 2010_   
**

When Mycroft walked into John’s hospital room, the doctor was already awake and sitting up. He stared Mycroft down as the man walked in and settled into the chair next to John’s bed.

“Where am I? Where’s Sherlock? No one’s told me anything, and I want answers, Mycroft.”

Mycroft looked unperturbed. “Unfortunately, Doctor Watson, I had to initiate an emergency plan that I had hoped I would never have to use.”

“Mycroft—” John growled.

“You are in Edinburgh, at a private MI6 hospital. Sherlock is fine, and still in London.”

John’s face creased in confusion. “I don’t understand. Why did you separate us?”

Mycroft sighed. “I had heard rumours of James Moriarty long before he started taunting Sherlock. Unfortunately, all I heard were rumours, and without concrete facts, I could not act on anything. But the rumours were enough for me to put together an emergency plan for Sherlock, and later, you, once you two moved in together. This plan is called Project Greenhorn.”

John nodded thoughtfully. “And what does Project Greenhorn entail?”

“The Project was designed to keep both of you as safe as possible. However, certain….unfortunate deceptions have to be maintained in order for this to work.”

“What deceptions?”

“The conditions of your separation have not been revealed to Sherlock. He is operating under the assumption that you are dead.”

“What?” John spluttered. “Dead? He thinks I’m dead? Why?”

“As I’m sure you’re aware, you are a liability for Sherlock. A distraction. He needs to find Moriarty and get rid of him, and he’s the only one who can. But having you along will only slow him down. He’s too concerned about your welfare, Doctor Watson, and as a result, he will be overly cautious. You compromise him, and in order for him to work properly, he needs not to have to worry about you. It’s nothing personal. I’ve done what I thought best for the both of you.”

“No no no no. That’s not how this is going to work. A liability? I’m the one who keeps him safe, in case you’ve forgotten. Do you have any idea of the damage you’ve done to him? To me? We work better together, Mycroft. He needs me, and I need him, I l—” He cut himself off, breathing hard through his nose. _Christ, Mycroft is a bastard,_ John thought, _what the hell does he know about us, about how we work? He obviously has no idea what Sherlock told me, or he wouldn’t have done this._

“Nevertheless, Doctor Watson, this is happening. You will be placed in protective custody and given a new identity. We will move you to a safe location and give you all of the details of your new life once you’ve been released from hospital. It should go without saying that you and Sherlock will have no contact.”

A muscle in John’s jaw ticked as he gritted his teeth. “I don’t like this, Mycroft.”

“Believe me, Doctor Watson, neither do I. As much as Sherlock would have you think otherwise, I do not enjoy causing my brother pain. But I could see no other way.”

“You could let me go with him.”

Mycroft smiled as he stood. “It’s too late for that, Doctor. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I shall see you once you’re released from hospital. Good day.” He swept imperiously out of the room.

“Fuck!” John swore as he threw the cup that had been sitting on the side table across the room. He seethed. If Mycroft thought that John would just go along with his little Project, then the man had severely underestimated him. He settled back against the pillows and waited for the doctor to come back in.. He would demand to be released as soon as possible so that he could track Sherlock down.

John Watson would not be so easily cowed.

*****

 **  
_10 April 2010_   
**

Sherlock had been installed in a safehouse for just over twenty-four hours when Mycroft finally made an appearance.

Sherlock looked up from the laptop he had precariously balanced on the desk, which was already overflowing with papers and file folders.

“We need to discuss how you want to go about this,” Mycroft said without preamble.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

“We’ve kept the explosion and your subsequent hospitalisation and release out of the papers. What I want to know is if you want to work under a new identity.”

“No.” _John knew me as Sherlock, and I will avenge him under my own name,_ he thought as he pecked listlessly at the laptop.

“Very well. What progress have you made?”

Sherlock wouldn’t meet his brother’s eyes. He would never admit it to Mycroft, but he could barely function under the weight of his grief.

Every breath he took hurt. He kept expecting to hear John’s footsteps, to see him standing over his shoulder or sitting in the other chair. He kept waiting for tea, for a brush of John’s hand across his shoulder or through his hair, for John to lean down and kiss him on the cheek. But all that there was in this little house was silence, thick and oppressive, and Sherlock hated it. He couldn’t concentrate or focus because every thought was John John John John _John_.

But to admit such to Mycroft was inconceivable.

Yet Mycroft must’ve seen something in his posture or in his face that gave him away, because his brother simply said, “I’ll check back tomorrow, then.”

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?”

Mycroft held out a small wooden box. It was pine, not much larger than a box of matches, small enough to slip into a pocket. Sherlock took it, opened it, and chocked off a sob as he gently, reverently lifted out the small sealed bag inside. A few grams of ash settled at the bottom. Sherlock ran a finger over them before gently closing the bag in his fist. He looked at Mycroft, unspoken thanks in his eyes.

Mycroft simply gripped his shoulder and squeezed it once before he left, gently closing the door behind him.

Sherlock carefully replaced the bag into the box and slipped the box into his jacket’s pocket. He could feel the slight weight press against his heart, and felt a little of his grief lessen as he absently rubbed at the box while he turned back to the laptop.

That night was the first night he had slept for more than an hour at a time since learning of John’s death. He clutched the little box in one hand as he slept, drawing comfort from having some small part of John with him again.

He dreamed of the pool and fire, of Moriarty’s sneering face. He dreamed of the last time he saw John alive, whole, looking at him and giving him permission to shoot the vest.

He woke with a gasp and a damp pillowcase, the now-familiar castigation racing through his thoughts. _It’s all my fault. I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I just want you here I need you here with me and it’s my fault I don’t have you anymore._

 _I loved you, and I never told you and I will never forgive myself for not telling you that every day._

He felt the bitter tang of regret burn in his throat and knew that he would not sleep again that night. Gathering the small box to his chest, he carefully sat up, mindful of his healing ribs, and shuffled back out to the small sitting room to work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of _The Great Game_ , Sherlock is on the hunt for revenge as John waits for Sherlock to join him. But deception abounds as both men struggle to come to terms with the paths their lives have taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**woodencoyote**](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/)’s Make Me a Monday [prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/sherlockbbc/2179143.html?thread=26053703#t26053703).

**  
_13 April 2010_   
**

John stared at the four bare walls of his safe house in Edinburgh. He’d only been in the house for five hours, and he was already itching with the need to find a way out without being caught by Mycroft’s cameras (even though he couldn’t see them, he knew they were there). He was carefully pacing around the small sitting room, limping slightly as he put weight on his healing ankle.

Mycroft had sent Anthea to take him to the safe house. She had provided him with a folder and a suitcase. The folder had his new identity (he was to be Martin Wilson, now), a new driving licence, passport, credit card, bank card, checkbook, birth certificate, medical records, his GP licence, his service record, a single sheet of biographical information, and money.

He had flipped through the file absently as he and Anthea rode towards the safe house. When he got to the biography, Anthea looked up from her Blackberry for a moment and said, “Memorise that. We did our best to make it as close to your life as possible.”

He looked down at the sheet with interest.

Martin Wilson, doctor. Grew up in Hampstead, moved to London, went to medical school at St. George’s. Widower, no children, parents dead years ago. Had one sister who lived on the Continent. Joined the RAMC after medical school, served with distinction, but left after his period of service was over to start his own practice. The gunshot wound on his shoulder was explained away as a wound from the car accident that killed his wife, whose name, apparently, had been Lauren.

“I’m a widower?”

“Oh, yes, I forgot this.” Anthea pulled a plain gold wedding band from her pocket and handed it to John. “You should wear this.”

John slid it onto his finger, fighting the urge to yank it right back off. It felt wrong to wear it. He’d never pictured himself married, not even after he and Sherlock had….he cut off that train of thought. It was no good dwelling on what would likely never happen.

“So what next?” John asked, proud that he managed to keep his voice steady.

“You’ll stay at this safe house until you are fully recovered. We’ve arranged for a physical therapist to see you three times a week. You will not be allowed to leave the house for any reason. We’ve had the house stocked with everything you should need. Someone will leave groceries for you as needed.” She handed over a new mobile phone. “It should go without saying that you are not to contact anyone you know. Their numbers and email addresses have been blocked. There are three numbers in that phone. One connects you to someone who will get you any supplies you need. The second connects you to Mycroft’s personal line. The third connects you to the head of your security detail.”

John snorted as he opened the phone, thumbed through the contacts list, sent a text to Mycroft:

 _Fuck you.  
JW_

and put the phone in his pocket.

One corner of Anthea’s mouth was tipped in a slight smile. She had probably figured out what he had sent just by the tones of the keys he had pressed. She continued as if nothing had happened, “Once you’re declared fit, you’ll be sent to a second safe house. We’ll set you up with a private practice and you’ll have freedom to move about the locale. Obviously, you’ll still have a security detail, but you will have more freedom.”

“And then what? How long am I supposed to sit around and wait?”

“Until the situation is resolved, Doctor Wilson.”

John clenched his jaw and did not say another word until the car drew up next to a small, non descript house on the outer edge of Edinburgh.

Anthea got out of the car and waited for John to do the same. “Here,” she said as she handed him a large suitcase. “We’ll be in touch. Your physical therapist will be by at 10:30 tomorrow morning. Security will let you know when it’s safe to open the door. Remember, you’re not to leave the house. And if you try, you won’t get past the security team, so don’t bother. Good day, Doctor. I’ll see you soon.”

John stalked into the house, dragging the suitcase behind him. When he shut the door behind him, it felt as if he’d just locked himself into his own prison, which, in a way, he thought, I just did.

He dropped the suitcase by the door and explored the small house. One floor. Front door opened into a small entry way with the sitting room to his right and the kitchen and dining area to his left. A short hallway led to a small office behind the kitchen and the bedroom across the hall from the office. The bathroom was attached to the bedroom. The furniture was practical and plain. There was a bureau, bedside table, bed and a lamp in the bedroom; a desk, lamp, and chair in the office; a sofa, a chair, one bookcase, the telly, and a few tables in the sitting room. The kitchen was just large enough for him to move about comfortably. He noticed the small washing machine tucked under the counter with a sigh of relief. At least he wouldn’t have to send out his dirty pants to be washed. Everything was fully stocked, as Anthea had promised. There was plenty of food, plates, cups, a kettle, pots and pans, everything.

It took only a few minutes to see everything in the small house, so John decided to unpack the suitcase. He dragged it into the bedroom and set it on the bed with a thud. The suitcase contained clothes, shoes, a laptop (not his own from Baker Street), toiletries, a few books, his medical bag (which nearly made John tear up in relief; it had been a gift from his mother when he’d graduated from medical school and it was the only thing he had left from her), a gun and ammunition, and tucked away at the bottom, sealed in a bag, Sherlock’s blue-grey scarf.

John reached down and pulled out the bag with shaking hands. It took him two tries to get the bag unsealed as his hands were shaking hard enough to make opening it difficult. He pulled out the scarf and pressed it to his face, inhaling deeply. Sherlock’s unique scent of sandalwood, chemicals, agar, and mint from his shampoo assaulted John’s nose as he breathed in great greedy lungfuls of his lover’s scent. His knees gave out and he fell painfully to the floor, still clutching the scarf. He laid there for a long while before his shoulder (a chunk of rubble in the explosion had reshattered the shoulder he had been shot in, hence the need for the physical therapy) protested and he painfully struggled back to his feet. He gently, reverently folded the scarf and put it back in the bag, carefully resealing it to help preserve Sherlock’s scent.

His phone vibrated in his pocket as he was putting the last of the clothes in the bureau.

It was a text from Mycroft.

 _I am only doing what is best. Be patient.  
MH_

John scowled and typed his response:

 _Some of us aren’t trapped in a cage right now. My patience isn’t going to last long.  
JW_

 _I have been trapped for longer than you know, Doctor.  
MH_

 _fuck you. do you even know what it is to love? to feel helpless? to know that you could do something to help the one you care for but are prevented from doing so? once you know what that feels like, then you can talk to me about being trapped_

 _Yes, Doctor, I do know all of these things. Sherlock is a difficult man to love, but like you, I would do anything for him. I did not make the decision to initiate the Project lightly, I can assure you.  
MH_

John shut the phone with a decisive snap. He knew that baiting Mycroft was no way to get what he wanted. If he wanted to be able to help Sherlock, then he needed to employ everything he had picked up from Sherlock and use it; however, he had to bide his time until he was no longer under such strict supervision. Once he got to the second safe house, he could make his move.

Buoyed by his plan, John took the laptop out to the sitting room and made himself comfortable in the chair. He started browsing local news sites, looking for clues of Moriarty’s movements or of unusual crimes that reeked of Moriarty’s influence. He found nothing, and after an hour of fruitless searching, his shoulder, ankle, ribs, and head were protesting. He got up and fetched one of his pain pills from the bathroom, washing it down with a swig of water before stumbling to the bed for a nap.

He woke three hours later and went back out to the sitting room and flicked on the telly. He’d been here for four hours and his left hand was already trembling slightly. He turned the telly off after half an hour and started pacing the sitting room. Half an hour later, he slumped back down into his chair and put his head in his hands.

Every cell in his body was screaming at him to get up, to go out and find Sherlock, to _do something_ , anything, other than sit here. He opened the phone and texted Mycroft again.

 _i need to do something to help him. let me help i can’t just sit here while he’s putting himself in danger  
_

 _You are helping him by staying safe. And no, you will never be able to slip your security detail even when you move on to the next house.  
MH_

 _Fucking Holmeses and their fucking mind reading skills,_ John thought as he frowned at Mycroft’s text. He replied,

 _i want updates on what he’s doing_

 _We’ll see.  
MH_

 _no i want them thats not negotiable. if i cant help him then I want to know what hes doing_

 _We’ll speak about this later. Good night, Doctor Wilson.  
MH_

 _stop calling me that that’s not who i am_

 _It’s who you are now, Doctor. Don’t forget that.  
MH_

John snarled and nearly threw the phone across the room when he read that text. _I’ll be damned before I ever let myself become that man,_ he thought as he stalked into the kitchen. While the thought of eating made his stomach turn, he knew he had to put something into his stomach to help absorb his medication. He made toast and tea, ate it without tasting it, and shuffled off to bed. He stripped down to his vest and pants, dumped the dirty clothes in the laundry bin in the bathroom, took his medication, and limped to the bed, pulling back the covers and climbing in with a sigh.

His thumb rubbed over the wedding ring Anthea had given him. It was odd that the ring, at first unwanted and strange, had become something that felt so familiar it had faded into the background, as if it had always been a part of him. He let himself indulge in the fantasy that Sherlock had been the one to put the ring on his finger as he settled into a more comfortable position. He could easily picture the disdainful look Sherlock would have given him if John had voiced this fantasy. But Sherlock’s eyes would have been warm and considering, his mouth quirked in a barely visible smile, even as he mocked the romantic nonsense of marriage. John smiled for the first time in a week at his mental picture of his lover before he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of _The Great Game_ , Sherlock is on the hunt for revenge as John waits for Sherlock to join him. But deception abounds as both men struggle to come to terms with the paths their lives have taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**woodencoyote**](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/)’s Make Me a Monday [prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/sherlockbbc/2179143.html?thread=26053703#t26053703).

  
**  
_23 May 2010_   
**

Sherlock spent six long weeks in the safe house as his ribs and arm healed. He spent the time well, sending off anonymous tips to the Yard that led to the capture of several of Moriarty’s low-ranking henchmen. He kept a close eye on the news, waiting to hear any news of Moriarty himself, but there were none. The best intelligence he received, he was loath to admit, came from Mycroft’s surveillance. Sherlock had never fully appreciated how far-reaching Mycroft’s network was until he had to wholly depend on it for information.

The scraps of information Mycroft’s people had found pointed to America, specifically New York City, Paris, Munich, and Minsk. Sherlock started combing through all of the information he had, searching for a starting place.

But during those six weeks, when he hadn’t been looking through piles of paper or trawling the internet, he had been…grieving. He firmly placed every last scrap of memory he had of John into a file in his brain and then backed it up, forcing it to the back of his mind so he wouldn’t be too distracted.

But the house was quiet, and he found himself pulling that file marked _John_ to the forefront of his brain and let himself wallow in his memories. He and John had not been living together for long before the Incident at the Pool; it had only been a few months, not nearly long enough.

The first time he saw John, looking small and forlorn in the lab at Bart’s, he had felt an inexplicable connection to this stranger. The invitation to come to Baker Street the next day fell from his lips almost without his mind’s permission. He had been so shocked at the casualness of his invitation and the fact that this John Watson hadn’t flinched at Sherlock’s deductions about his character that he made his excuses to leave as quickly as he could, trying to cover his discomfort with a saucy wink. His heart had pounded loudly as he had practically run down the hallway back to the morgue. _Focus,_ he had scolded himself as he grabbed the riding crop and headed back to Baker Street. _There’s nothing special about him. As a doctor, he’s more likely to put up with your experiments and he’ll be good to take along on cases if he’ll agree to go. Don’t let yourself get close or attached; you know he’ll end up leaving just like everyone else has._

But when he met John again the next day, he felt strangely nervous, like a schoolboy with a crush. He genuinely wanted John to like the flat, and was surprised at his embarrassment when John commented on his mess. His heart settled, though, when John dropped into one of the chairs as if it had always been his. And when he came back into the sitting room to ask John to come along, he felt a spark along his nerves at John’s breathy “Oh, God, yes.”

He knew it now, because John had pointed it out to him weeks after their first case together, but he had been showing off for John on that first day. He’d been anxious to have John like him, something that he had always pretended not to care about. But despite what everyone thought, Sherlock was human, and a small part of him craved affection, and apparently, John’s affection and friendship was something his often-ignored heart had decided he needed. So he dazzled John with his deductions, relishing the doctor’s breathed “Brilliant” at the crime scene. And then his enthusiasm for the chase kicked in as he left John behind in order to find a pink suitcase.

When Sherlock returned in triumph to their flat, he had expected John to be there already. When the flat proved to be empty, something Sherlock tentatively identified as guilt twisted in his gut. Here he was trying to convince John to take the flat and he had abandoned the man.

He sent a rapid succession of three texts to John’s mobile, hoping that the doctor would return. And when John had returned, Sherlock’s heart felt suddenly lighter.

And then there had been the cabbie and the gunshot and Chinese food. John had laughed less than an hour after killing a man to protect him, Sherlock Holmes, who had never had anyone care about him enough to kill for him.

Sherlock had gone to bed that night flushed with the high of solving a case and drunk on the thought of having John beside him, warm and solid and reassuring, for as long as he could keep John with him. If this is what one case with John felt like, then Sherlock knew he was in trouble. He felt a lazy smile spread over his face as he nodded off with the sound of John’s laughter echoing in his ears. _Oh, yes, definitely in trouble,_ he thought as his eyes closed.

*

Sherlock drew himself back into the present. His hand was resting unconsciously on top of the small pine box that held a few precious grams of John. The box was resting on top of the DNA test results he had run on the ashes three weeks ago. He wouldn’t have put it past Mycroft to trick him, to put someone else’s ashes into a box and hide John, living and whole, away somewhere. When the man who brought his groceries sat a plain manila folder next to the bag of groceries, Sherlock’s heart started to pound dully in his chest. The results had come back three days ago, and Sherlock had hardly slept in the nearly three weeks it had taken for the results to arrive. He waited until the man left before pouncing on the folder and opening it with shaking hands. He had to read the results twice before the words sank in.

Perfect match.

John really was gone. Dead. No chance of coming back.

Sherlock carefully sat the folder back on the table, picked up the small box and slowly, precisely turned away from the table and took careful, measured steps back to his bed and lifted up the duvet and crawled under it and pulled it in tightly over his head, cocooning himself in his bed. If he let himself imagine it, he could almost pretend that John was lying here next to him, wrapped up safe and warm. If he listened carefully enough, he could almost hear John breathing, his heart beating softly under Sherlock’s cheek. Sherlock took a deep, shaky breath and let it out in a rush as he stroked the top of the box with one finger and let his eyes drift shut, holding on tightly to his sense memories of John John John always always John.

He didn’t leave the bed except to take care of his most basic needs for two days.

The only thing that had forced him out of bed after getting the test results back was the appointment he had to get the cast taken off. That had been yesterday, and his left arm looked pale and strange without the heavy cast. Now he was looking over his case notes one more time while waiting for Mycroft to arrive. He was itching to leave, but as Mycroft, clever bastard that he was, had refused to give Sherlock any access to money until they had, as Mycroft put it, “worked out a plan,” he couldn’t go anywhere.

Just as Sherlock was reaching for the phone to text Mycroft and demand that he come over right then so Sherlock could leave, could try to quench the fire that had been burning in him ever since he learned John was dead by hunting down the man who had taken his lover from him and killing him slowly, Mycroft walked in the door.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft nodded in greeting as he settled into the sitting room’s only chair. He leaned back casually, crossing his legs at the knee and twirling his umbrella in one long-fingered hand.

“Mycroft.”

“I will not presume to ask if you are ready to leave, as I know you are. However, I do need to know where you’re planning on going so that I can make travel arrangements.”

“Munich. It seems the best choice for now. I don’t know where I’ll end up from there.”

“I have the same information you do, Sherlock. I would’ve thought you’d have started in New York.”

“New York is dormant right now. He’s heading to Munich, I know it.”

Mycroft’s lips pursed. “Very well,” he said after a moment. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small envelope. “In here is money, your passport, bank cards, credit cards, and new ID. I took the liberty of assuming that you still did not want a new identity.”

Sherlock took the proffered envelope and quickly rifled through its contents before dropping it onto his lap.

“When are you leaving?”

“As soon as I pack.”

“I’ll have the security team ready, then.”

“No.”

“Sherlock, I can’t have you running all over the world without protection.”

“And I can’t afford to be tripped up by your incompetent ‘security.’ They’ll only compromise me.”

“Sherlock—”

“I’ll keep you as informed as I can. When it’s safe for me to contact you, I will.”

Something in Mycroft’s face must have given his apprehension away, because Sherlock’s eyes softened slightly as he said, “I promise, Mycroft. If I am in trouble or if I need anything, anything at all, I will contact you.”

“Very well.” Mycroft stood, and Sherlock, to his great surprise did as well.

Sherlock took a step forward and gripped Mycroft’s arm. “Where is John’s stone? I want to see him, to say goodbye properly before I go.”

“The driver will take you there before he takes you to the airport, or the train station. Wherever you want to go.”

Sherlock pulled his brother into a brief hug. It was over as soon as it began. “Thank you, Mycroft, for everything.”

“Be well, and be safe, Sherlock,” Mycroft said with a gentle smile. “Keep me informed. I do worry about you.”

“I will.”

Mycroft smiled once more and left, swinging his umbrella as he went.

As soon as Mycroft was in his car, he turned to Anthea and said, “Get Robertson into position. Sherlock’s heading for John’s headstone, and then he’ll be on the way to Munich. I want daily reports on Sherlock’s movements.”

“Yes, sir.”

*

Two hours later, Sherlock was standing in front of a simple headstone. He sank down to sit in front of it, one hand reaching out to trace the letters carved into the smooth granite.

 _John Hamish Watson  
1971-2010_

“I’m so sorry, John,” Sherlock breathed as he withdrew his hand and clenched it in his lap. “I’m so sorry for the things I did, for the things I should’ve done. I should’ve told you every day, every minute that I loved you. And I did love you, John. I still do. I hope you knew that. I’d like to think you did.

“There were so many things I wanted to tell you, to do with you. I wanted to see you go grey. I wanted to see your laugh lines grow deeper. I wanted to retire with you, to Sussex, to live in a cottage and keep bees while you wrote up our cases and turned them into a book. I wanted to grow old with you, John. I wanted us to die in our bed together when we were so old, so full of a life well-lived.”

Sherlock swallowed down the tears that threatened to spill. “Hell, I even would have said yes if you’d asked me to marry you. I never believed in marriage, thought it was pointless if you had promised to stay by that person forever. I always thought that a piece of paper meant nothing. But now I see differently. I would’ve liked to have been your husband. I might’ve even asked you to marry me—and wouldn’t that have shocked you.” He broke off with a wry grin, imagining the look of surprise John would’ve had if Sherlock had dropped to one knee and proposed. “But it’s too late for that now.”

He fell silent, listening to the breeze rustle the leaves of the oak tree nearby, lost in the thoughts of what could have been if only he hadn’t pulled that trigger, gone to the Pool, played Moriarty’s game. When he came back to himself, he said, roughly, “I might not ever come back here, John. I’m leaving to go after him, and I intend to end this. It might result in me dying, but I don’t think that would be so bad. I know you would say that that’s not good, but living without you is not good.

“God, what did you do to me, John? Before I met you, I was perfectly fine on my own. But now it feels like I’ve lost a limb or some vital organ. How did you get to me? Why you, when no else ever has? You looked into me and understood me, knew me better than anyone, maybe even better than myself. And now the thought of having to wait years to see you again is enough to undo me. So while you may think me dying to avenge you is not good, it’s the only good thing I have left.

“So let me say this now, while I’m sitting here, since I may not have the chance again.

“I love you, John Watson. I loved you from the moment you shot that cabbie. I’m sorry I never told you, but I was too scared to admit it to myself, let alone to you. You were the one person I never knew I needed until I met you. I miss you so deeply now that it scares me. I’ve never felt this way about anyone, and having had it for so brief a time makes me wish I’d held on just a little tighter. Perhaps if I had, you’d still be here. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

Sherlock leaned forward and pressed his lips to the cold stone. “I’ll see you as soon as I can. I love you.”

He stood up on shaky legs, scraping the tears from his face as he looked down one last time at John’s headstone, tracing the engraving with his eyes and burning it into his memory.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and strode back to the waiting car.

The game had begun.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of _The Great Game_ , Sherlock is on the hunt for revenge as John waits for Sherlock to join him. But deception abounds as both men struggle to come to terms with the paths their lives have taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/profile)[**woodencoyote**](http://woodencoyote.livejournal.com/)’s Make Me a Monday [prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/sherlockbbc/2179143.html?thread=26053703#t26053703).

  
_  
**4 June 2010**   
_

John set his suitcase down with a thump. Anthea had not accompanied him to this new safe house; instead, when the car finally arrived in Edinburgh, she had stepped out, handed him a briefcase, held the car door open, and shut it behind him. The car pulled away, leaving her behind. John waited two minutes before opening his mobile and sending Mycroft a text.

 _Where am I going?  
MW_

It had taken him weeks to learn to sign his texts with his new initials. Mycroft refused to answer him unless he used the correct initials, and if he wanted updates on Sherlock, then John had forced himself to use the still-strange initials. Even so, all he had gotten from Mycroft was that Sherlock was alive and healed. His mobile buzzed.

 _Luton. Read the files in your briefcase.  
MH_

John opened the briefcase and lifted out the first folder. The papers were a deed to a small house. Mycroft’s people had included pictures and a floorplan. John flipped through them, noting that the house had a small garden. He flashed back to before the Pool, to one of his and Sherlock’s precious nights together, facing each other and curled up like commas in John’s bed, holding hands and whispering daring plans for the future. Their future. Sherlock, in a whisper so faint John could barely make out the words, confessed that he wanted to get a small cottage, perhaps by the sea, perhaps not, that had a large garden. He wanted to keep bees, he said, stroking the back of John’s hand with his thumb. John had smiled and joked about stocking up on anti-histamines for the inevitable bee stings. Sherlock had grinned back, and then pressed him onto his back as Sherlock claimed his mouth.

 _Perhaps I should learn about bees,_ John thought as he set the folder aside. _It would be nice for Sherlock to come home to even if all he did was correct me on everything I got wrong. It would be worth the work to see him smile when he walked in the door._ He picked up the next folder. It was a contract for his new job as a trauma surgeon at Luton and Dunstable Hospital. John nearly dropped the paper when he saw the salary figure. He hurriedly picked up the first folder and started searching for mortgage paperwork. Seeing none, he texted Mycroft again.

 _Thank you.  
MW_

 _Not at all, Doctor Wilson. After all, it would be a waste of your considerable skills to have you in a GP practice.  
MH_

 _What about my mortgage? I need to know where to send the cheques.  
MW_

 _The house is paid for, Doctor, as is the car. Sherlock would be most upset if I didn’t take care of you when he couldn’t.  
MH_

John felt a blush creeping up his cheeks as he stubbornly tried not to think of Mycroft knowing what Sherlock meant to him, and how much Mycroft had given away about how Sherlock felt about John. Then, the car statement struck him, and he dug through the folders in search of the car title, which was for a small Ford Fiesta, nothing fancy. John felt a little guilty as he found the keys for the house and the car in an envelope at the bottom of the briefcase. He turned them over in his hand and nearly dropped them when his phone buzzed.

 _You report to the hospital for orientation on Tuesday at 9 AM. Directions and instructions are in the folder with your contract. Money for necessities has been deposited in your account.  
MH_

 _Thank you again. How is Sherlock?  
MW_

 _All in good time, Doctor. It’s not safe to discuss this matter via text. I will be by this week to discuss progress. Good day, Doctor.  
MH_

John put his phone back in his pocket and stared out the window as the countryside flashed past. Sometime past Carlisle, he fell asleep.

*

The driver woke him when they were outside his new front door. John shut the briefcase and opened the car door, accepting his suitcase from the driver before trundling up the walk. The house was painted a soft blue, with a plain white door. As he put the key in the lock, John suddenly, fervently wished he was back home at Baker Street, which he missed terribly. He wanted to have Sherlock standing over his shoulder, smiling an inscrutable smile, the same way he had when John had first used his own set of keys, given to him by Mrs. Hudson, to let them into Baker Street. But John was alone, again, as he had been in Edinburgh, and there was nothing for it, now. He squared his shoulders and turned the key in the lock.

 _This is home, for now,_ John thought as he pulled the suitcase in and shut the door. _It’s only for a short time, and Sherlock will be back before long. Then we can go home and…_ John cut himself off. He didn’t want to think about all of the things he and Sherlock had shared during their late-night talks in John’s bed; doing so would only lead to heartbreak, or rash decisions.

John walked through the empty hallways of his new house, noting the sparse furnishings. His footsteps echoed on the tile. John hated that sound. This house was almost the exact antithesis to Baker Street’s cosy, cramped, warm, familiar rooms. This house was open, airy, and cold—all the walls were white, all the appliances stark silver. It made John shiver—he didn’t like the harsh lighting or the chilled feeling he got as he moved through the rooms on that first day.

As he fell asleep that first night, John couldn’t help but feel that this place was more like a crypt than a home.

*****

 **  
_10 June 2010_   
**

Mycroft strode into John’s new home without announcing himself. John, for his part, had just barely heard his soft footfalls and pulled the gun he always carried in his waistband out and thumbed off the safety before he heard the distinctive click of Mycroft’s umbrella and relaxed. He came around the corner from the kitchen to see Mycroft standing in front of the sitting room window, staring out at the bare garden.

“You should know not to sneak in on armed ex-soldiers who are in protective custody,” John said as he clicked the safety on.

Mycroft gave him a bemused smile. “Ah, Doctor Wilson. How are you enjoying Luton?”

“Well enough. Please, sit.”

Mycroft sat and primly crossed his legs.

“Tea?”

“Ah, no, thank you. I’m afraid I don’t have long to visit.”

John sat, placing the gun on the coffee table in front of him. “How is he?”

“Fine.”

John stared at Mycroft expectantly. Mycroft met his gaze with a small amused twist to his mouth.

“Well? Where is he?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Tell me, Doctor, if I told you, would you not be on the next flight to that location, security detail and your safety and Sherlock’s be damned?”

John didn’t flinch. “Yes. Yes, I would. And contrary to what you might think, Sherlock works better with me there. I should be there with him, not hiding out like some coward in a safe house in Luton! I’m a soldier, Mycroft. I can help him, help protect him. I need to do something other than just sit here and wait for him to come back. Surely you understand that.”

Mycroft stood, smoothing down his jacket. He looked at John with sympathy in his eyes. “I do understand that, Doctor. However, I also understand my brother better than you do. Putting you in harm’s way would be unforgivable. But letting you get hurt or die? That would destroy him. I will not do that to him.” Mycroft’s face softened when he saw John’s gobsmacked look. “Yes, Doctor, I am very aware of what your and Sherlock’s relationship is, and I know what Sherlock would want me to do for you in case he could not do anything himself, and I am doing exactly that.”

“Mycroft—”

“Besides, I would do anything for my family, and now, that includes you.”

And with that, Mycroft swept out of the room, leaving John staring after him.

*

That night, as John curled up alone under his duvet, he took himself in hand for the first time since the Pool, the last time he had seen his lover. Feeling guilty at allowing himself pleasure while he was safe and warm in a house while Sherlock was surely cold and most definitely not safe, his orgasm, when it came, was not satisfying. He rolled over and plucked a tissue from the box on his nightstand and desultorily cleaned himself off, dropping the used tissue on the floor. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

Sherlock had caught his eye from the moment he clapped eyes on the tall stranger at Bart’s. It hadn’t taken long for a strange affinity to develop between them—John knew that he craved the adrenaline rush that came with assessing and stitching up injuries during a firefight, but he never dreamed he’d find the same thrill running after Sherlock Holmes and a taxi that might have a murderer in its passenger seat.

He had pulled the trigger and killed the cabbie without hesitation. It was what one did to protect one’s own in the Army, after all—shoot first so your friend doesn’t die.

It wasn’t until a few weeks after the cabbie incident that John realised that he might just be falling for Sherlock. It wasn’t anything obvious, like seeing Sherlock half-dressed (although he had seen the man shirtless after Sherlock had spilled acid on himself during one of his experiments and had had to rip the shirt off to avoid serious chemical burns) or kissing the man (that came later). It was an ordinary night, one of many since he had moved in. Sherlock was sprawled over the sofa, giving scathing commentary on the “forensics” of the crime show on the telly as John sat in his chair and finished a blog post. At one particularly loud outburst from his flatmate, John had looked over at Sherlock to respond, but found his breath caught in his throat.

Oh. _Oh._

The lamplight caught in Sherlock’s hair, turning it almost auburn. The shadows deepened his cheekbones and caught his eyes, turning them almost silver as Sherlock turned his head to look John in the eyes. John couldn’t look away—he was caught in Sherlock’s knowing, assessing gaze. _My God, he is magnificent. What am I to him? I’m just plain, ordinary John Watson, he of the limp and the scarred shoulder. I’m nothing compared to him, but God, I want to stay here as long as he’ll let me. I’ve never had a friend like this, and this is not a life I’d give up easily. And I want him, all of him._ That last thought startled him even as heat suffused his body. There must have been something in his face that gave him away, because Sherlock gave him a lazy blink before sitting up and declaring, “Tea, John.”

John shivered and came back to himself as he good-naturedly groused at Sherlock even as he got up and put the kettle on. Wanting to give himself a minute to cool down, he dug out a packet of microwave popcorn and heated it up. He brought tea and popcorn over to the sofa and nudged at Sherlock with his foot.

“Budge up and take this,” John said as he held out the tea mugs.

Sherlock took his mug and obligingly slid over. John settled down and balanced the bowl of popcorn in his lap before reaching for the clicker. “D’you mind if I change this?”

Sherlock snorted. “Anything is better than this sorry excuse for a ‘detective show.’” He reached over and stole a handful of popcorn, crunching it noisily as John flipped through the channels, finally settling on something even worse—a detective movie.

John couldn’t help but snigger as Sherlock got more and more incensed at the so-called detective’s ineptness. Eventually, Sherlock was slumped against John’s side, a long slice of warmth that suffused through their clothes and sent John’s heart stuttering. They both were yelling insults at the telly and laughing as they threw the occasional popcorn kernel at the screen to express their disgust. John looked over at Sherlock as often as he dared, feeling his heart clench a bit at the joy on Sherlock’s face. For the first time since he had left his childhood home, John felt safe, felt a sense of _home._

Sherlock caught him looking, then, and stared at John with his piercing grey eyes. John swallowed and glanced away, embarrassed at being caught out. He stood hastily, nearly dumping Sherlock on his side. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll just clean this up then,” John stammered as he bent to pick up the thrown kernels. He beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen, trying to ignore Sherlock’s calculating stare as he dropped the bowl into the sink and called a hasty “Good night” over his shoulder as he hurried up the stairs to his room.

That night, Sherlock had played something that John could only classify as longing and questioning on his violin. The song pervaded John’s dreams, pulling him into a pleasantly hazy dream of Sherlock’s body warm against his as they kissed lazily. When he woke, he knew that Sherlock had been asking him a question through his music, and John knew what answer he wanted to give.

When John came downstairs the next morning, Sherlock glanced at him almost shyly from his reclining position on the sofa. John found himself crossing over to his flatmate and boldly dipping down to press a brief kiss to his lips.

“The answer is yes, Sherlock,” he whispered as he straightened.

Sherlock’s eyes were wide as he gave John a pleased smile. “Good,” Sherlock breathed as he reached up and tentatively took John’s hand, tracing over John’s knuckles. “That’s good.”

*

Back in his cold, sterile house, John shuddered a bit as he wrapped the duvet tightly around himself. He closed his eyes and imagined that the silence of the house was broken by that first song Sherlock had played for him, the one that had expressed his longing and his desire even as it showed his doubt that John had felt the same way. The soft, haunting melody wove around his consciousness and pulled him into a deep sleep.

John didn’t dream that night.

  



	6. Chapter 6

**_17 June 2010_ **

Sherlock rubbed his eyes before throwing himself on the unmade bed in his dingy hotel room in Munich. He tossed the newspaper he had been studying on the floor and sighed. He was no closer to finding Moriarty here than he had been in London. The thought that Moriarty had been able to trick him, to lead him to a dead end, was rankling at him. He had managed to take down a few of Moriarty’s lowest-ranking men, spending two days in a dank, dark warehouse getting information from them before dumping them in front of the local police station. He didn’t kill them. John would not have wanted him to kill to avenge John’s death. John would have wanted him to bring the men, even Moriarty, to justice by turning them over to the police, to let the courts do their job. Sherlock would honor that for as long as he could stand to do so, but when he caught Moriarty, he knew that there would be nothing but a bullet between the eyes for that snake.

His information-gathering session with the few men he had caught revealed nothing of Moriarty’s movements. Apparently, Moriarty had not seen fit to take the three men Sherlock was currently questioning with him when he pulled his operation out of Munich. The only bit of truly useful information Sherlock got out of the three of them was a name, one that hadn’t been in any of the intelligence he or Mycroft had gathered.

As soon as he had deposited the three unconscious men outside of one of Munich’s police stations (and had left a tape recording of their confessions to several crimes committed for Moriarty tucked into one of their pockets), he had texted Mycroft for the first time since he left the safe house with the name they had given him.

 _Sebastian Moran. I need everything you have.  
SH_

 _It’s good to know you’re still alive. I’ll see what I can do.  
MH_

Sherlock strode back to the grotty hotel he had been staying in. The proprietor didn’t ask questions and took Sherlock’s money without batting an eye, but his funds were now dangerously low, and he was afraid to use his bankcard in case Moriarty was tracking it. He knew the phone was untraceable—Mycroft had told him as much before he left the safe house, but the bankcard could be another story.

 _Cash fund low.  
SH_

His phone buzzed again almost immediately.

 _Like the phone, your passport, bankcards, etc. are all untraceable. You’re welcome.  
MH_

Sherlock’s lip curled in an involuntary grin. _Smug bastard,_ he thought with something approaching affection as he typed,

 _Moran, as soon as possible.  
SH_

Mycroft’s answer was one word: _Patience._

*

Anthea handed Mycroft a small file folder. “Robertson’s report from today, sir.”

“Thank you. Highlights?”

“Sherlock dropped the men off at a local police station. He’s gone back to his hotel. Robertson anticipates that Sherlock will leave Munich within the next 48 hours.”

Mycroft let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. At least Sherlock hadn’t killed those two men. Robertson’s reports from the past two days had been…troubling to say the least, and Mycroft was prepared to send in a clean-up crew to cover Sherlock’s tracks in case he had killed them. He was infinitely glad that that was no longer necessary.

He cleared his throat and glanced at Anthea. “I need you to order a probe on one Sebastian Moran. I need everything that can be found on him. This has top priority—I expect a report by tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

******

 

 **_28 December 2011_ **

Sherlock stepped off the plane and cleared customs at Charles de Gaulle. As he left the airport, he looked to his left and saw a strangely familiar black sedan pulling up to the kerb and stopping next to him. Sherlock rolled his eyes and got in to the car, not surprised to see he was alone. Mycroft did so like his little spy games.

He settled in as the car cut easily through Paris’ morning rush hour traffic. He pulled out the thick file on Moran Mycroft had sent him eighteen months ago and flicked through it again. Sherlock’s own intelligence gathering had brought in more information, but every trail had gone cold, and he was getting frustrated. And now Mycroft was bringing him in, presumably to talk or celebrate a late Christmas.

Sherlock sat up a bit straighter as the car rolled out of Paris, heading in the direction of their late grandmother’s home. How had Mycroft known where he was and what time he would be arriving? The bastard said his passport was untraceable—but perhaps only Mycroft could trace it? Or had Mycroft sent a tail after him? Sherlock let himself seethe at his brother’s meddling as the car pulled up the familiar drive and stopped outside his late grandmother’s home. He got out of the car and ran up the steps to the front door, smirking a bit as he found it unlocked. He swung it open and headed straight for the sitting room at the back of the house, knowing that he would find Mycroft ensconced in one of the overstuffed armchairs.

“Ah, Sherlock, there you are.”

“Mycroft.”

“Do sit down.”

Sherlock dropped his bag next to the chair opposite Mycroft’s and dropped into it, settling in and refusing to squirm under Mycroft’s intense scrutiny. Sherlock knew his appearance was a bit shocking—he had dyed his hair blond and let it grow out so it brushed his shoulders. Gone were the designer clothes: he wore a ratty button down and jeans and scuffed boots.

Mycroft’s eyebrow raised slightly at Sherlock’s challenging glare. “I am glad to see you well, little brother. It’s been a long time.”

Sherlock tugged at his shirt cuff and bluntly asked, “How did you know I was coming to Paris? I was under the impression that I was untraceable.”

“You will never be untraceable to me.”

“Do I have a tail?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, Sherlock.”

Sherlock let the silence stretch between them, staring moodily at the fire. He unconsciously let his hand rub over the box of John’s ashes he had in his jeans pocket. Mycroft noticed and stirred. “How are you coping?”  
Sherlock’s smile was bitter and brittle. “How do you think I’m coping? I still think that he’s running right behind me, standing over my shoulder when I work. Hell, I sometimes think I hear him say something.” Sherlock broke off and swallowed thickly. “I miss him, Mycroft. I didn’t think I was capable of caring for anyone, but I cared for him. I….I loved him.”

Mycroft’s hand covered his own. Sherlock jumped; he hadn’t heard his brother get up.

“Did he know? Did you tell him?”

Sherlock looked away. Mycroft sighed softly.

“Would you like some tea? Or something stronger? We do have much to discuss, Sherlock.”

“Tea with some brandy, if there is any.”

Mycroft left and came back a few minutes later with two teacups in his hand. Sherlock looked up at him in surprise.

“Did you make this?” he asked as he took a sip. “I didn’t think you knew how.”

Mycroft huffed. “As much as you like to believe I have staff to do everything, I do know how to make tea. I even cook, on occasion.”

As Mycroft settled back into his chair, Sherlock watched him carefully and asked, “Why am I here?”

“Because I wanted to check up on you, since you hardly see fit to contact me. And I was worried, Sherlock. I missed our…delightful conversations.”

Sherlock smirked. “You mean you were bored because you couldn’t use your surveillance to keep an eye on me.”

Mycroft said nothing, only sipped at his tea. He set the teacup down and leaned forward slightly. “What is the status of your project?”

“I would estimate that I am halfway through Moriarty’s organisation. Of Moriarty’s or Moran’s whereabouts, I do not know. I can say that I know I’m cutting through his ranks; hopefully at some point in the near future I’ll spook them into making a mistake.”

“And how likely is that?”

“Not very,” Sherlock shrugged. “Chances are they’ll go deeper underground. I’ve been in twenty countries in the past year and a half, and I’m still running behind them. At times, I almost think he’s laughing at me. At times, I think I’ll never find him.”

“Tell me what you’ve found. Let me help you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock started talking. They only broke to eat lunch and dinner, and they finally wished each other good night at midnight. While Mycroft had known some of what Sherlock had told him from Robertson’s reports, there was new information that he could use to assist Sherlock in his quest. He stayed downstairs as Sherlock went upstairs to the room he had always used when they visited their grandmother. He pulled out his secure laptop from the sidetable’s drawer and uploaded the recording of his and Sherlock’s conversation, sending it to Anthea with instructions to forward the information on to the Moriarty team. He shut his laptop and went upstairs himself, pausing for a moment outside Sherlock’s door before deciding against checking on his brother. He padded softly down the hall into his own room and finally fell into a deep sleep.

*

Sherlock had gone upstairs with a heavy heart. Mycroft’s questions about John had not helped his mood. He had spent every day of the last eighteen months ruthlessly trying (and only partially succeeding) to clamp down on his grief and his memories of John in order to keep himself from being distracted from exacting his revenge. But on the nights that he had managed to sleep over those long eighteen months, he let himself dream of the scant months he had had John and his life had been whole.

That night, in his old room at his grandmother’s house, Sherlock dreams of this:

The morning that John kissed him for the first time as he laid on the couch, scared of rejection, Sherlock’s heart, normally closed off, opened. The feeling of John’s hands in his own sent a thrill down his spine, and he wanted more.

He sat up and pulled John between his spread legs, tentatively wrapping his arms around the doctor and pressing his face into John’s stomach. His heart was racing, his nose filled with the scent of John’s laundry soap, cotton, sleep, sweat, and musk. The thin cotton of John’s t-shirt let his heat leech through and suffuse itself into Sherlock’s body. John’s hands slowly wound themselves into his hair, stroking along his scalp. Sherlock leaned appreciatively into the touch as he breathed John’s scent, letting it settle him.

John had eventually sat down on the sofa and pulled Sherlock into him, settling the detective into his side, wrapping one arm around Sherlock’s body, hand resting on his hip. Sherlock’s hand traced a slow pattern on John’s thigh as John reached over and picked up the telly remote. They barely paid attention to whatever programme was on—they were too wrapped up in each other.

Finally, hours later, John stirred and pressed a kiss into Sherlock’s temple. “Let’s go out and get some dinner, yeah?” He stood and gently tugged on Sherlock’s hand.

Sherlock stood willingly and, distracted by his heart fluttering for some unknown reason, deepened his voice to hide his sudden nervousness and asked, “Are you asking me on a date?”

John blushed and looked down at his feet for a second before meeting Sherlock’s eyes. “Yes, yes I am. I want to take you on a date. Is that all right?”

“It’s perfect.”

They went to Angelo’s—“It seems only appropriate,” John had said—and let their feet brush against each other’s under their table. Angelo gave them a knowing smile and fetched a second candle and a bottle of wine for them.

When they were both picking at their desserts, almost too full to finish them, Sherlock looked up at John and blurted, “I’ve never been on a date before.”

John looked surprised. “Really? Never?”

“Never.”

John reached over and squeezed Sherlock’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. This is nice.”

John smiled and leaned forward to kiss him softly on the lips. When he pulled away, Sherlock’s eyes had closed, cataloging the feeling of John’s lips against his. He opened his eyes to see John sitting back in his chair, smiling a bit dopily. “Ready to go?”

“Oh, yes.” Sherlock stood and shyly reached for John’s hand as they left Angelo’s and walked back home. John took his hand without hesitation and tangled his fingers in Sherlock’s, gently swinging their clasped hands as they walked.

Once home, John turned and looked at him and bit his lip. “Would you like to come to bed?”

Sherlock knew John had seen the flash of apprehension that crossed his face because instantly the doctor started babbling, “Shit, fuck that came out wrong. I don’t want to have sex. Damnit, yes, I do, I just don’t want it tonight, I don’t want to rush this. I just want you with me. Is that all right?”

John had blushed scarlet by the end of his speech, and Sherlock found himself wondering what it would be like to see John as he slept, to know what sounds John made as he dreamed, to feel his warmth pressed against him all night. It sounded like a wonderful idea—John really was brilliant. He leaned down and briefly pressed a kiss to John’s cheek, feeling the heat left by John’s blush. “Yes,” Sherlock said, “I would like that.”

John sagged a bit in relief and said, “I’ll see in a few, then?” as he practically ran up the stairs to his room.

When Sherlock poked his head into John’s room ten minutes later, John was just turning down the duvet, pyjama trousers clinging to his arse as he bent and stretched. Sherlock tried not to stare. John glanced over and smiled as he climbed into bed, scooting over to leave room for Sherlock, who, after a moment’s hesitation, slid in next to John. John gently pulled him close and rubbed one hand up and down Sherlock’s back as Sherlock pressed his face into the hollow of John’s shoulder. John rolled briefly onto his side in order to flick off the bedside lamp, and Sherlock held him there on his side, running his own hand experimentally up and down John’s spine, mimicking John’s own actions. John sighed softly and snuggled closer, breaths evening and deepening until he fell asleep. Sherlock forced himself to stay awake and observe John’s sleeping habits. He only managed to stay awake for an hour before John’s warmth pulled him under and he slept.

The next few weeks passed in much the same way. They would spend hours snogging on the sofa or in John’s bed. They went on dates and brushed against each other as they walked through London, catching each other’s hand and clasping it tightly. Sherlock spent each night in John’s bed, getting more sleep than he had in years as he curled around John’s body. They both would tactfully ignore the other’s morning erections until finally, one lazy Sunday morning four weeks after their first date, John rolled over and kissed Sherlock deeply, running a hand down his chest and stopping just at the waistband of Sherlock’s pyjamas.

“Sherlock, can I—?” John gasped as he slid his fingers just under Sherlock’s waistband.

“Yes, God, please.” Sherlock reached down and shoved his pyjamas down, tossing them to the floor before pulling his shirt off. John’s eyes were hungry as they raked over him. Sherlock reached over and tugged on the hem of John’s shirt in a silent plea. John shrugged off his shirt and pulled off his own pyjamas, tossing them on the floor. Sherlock’s own eyes roved over John’s form, noting every detail as the doctor rolled him onto his back and kissed him, running his hands down Sherlock’s sides. Sherlock’s hips bucked as he strained for some friction. John chuckled darkly, shooting sparks of desire down Sherlock’s spine as John slid off to his side and reached down and—oh. John’s hand wrapped around his cock and Sherlock’s brain whited out for a moment. John started stroking as Sherlock gasped and moaned, hands scrabbling for purchase in John’s sheets.

John grinned down at him. “Fuck, but you’re gorgeous,” he breathed as he watched his hand stroke up and down. “Can I taste you? I want to make you come in my mouth.”

Sherlock could only nod, wide-eyed, as John kissed his way down his body and pressed his face into the crease of Sherlock’s thigh, nose nestled into his balls, and inhaled, letting out a groan as he did. He bit and licked his way up Sherlock’s inner thigh and finally, finally, licked a long stripe up Sherlock’s straining cock before swallowing him down and setting up a steady rhythm that had Sherlock panting. Far too soon, he felt the familiar heaviness in his balls, and Sherlock gently cupped his hand on the back of John’s neck in warning. “John, John I’m going to, I’m—”

John moaned softly around his cock and sucked harder and that was all it took. Sherlock’s back arched as he came with a sharp cry. John swallowed and released Sherlock with a gentle pop as he looked and grinned widely at the detective.

Sherlock reached down and hauled John up for a bruising kiss, tasting himself on John’s tongue. John’s erection pressed into his stomach, and Sherlock snaked one hand down and stroked him as he kissed. John broke away, gasping for breath as he pushed his hips into Sherlock’s tight grip and came over Sherlock’s stomach a few strokes later.

John flopped onto his back, panting. “That was amazing,” he said after he’d caught his breath.

Sherlock grinned. “Next time, I want you to come in my mouth.”

John groaned, “Oh, God, yes. But later—I’m not up for another round now.”

And it was later that night that Sherlock took John in his mouth and let John thrust carefully up into his mouth, as Sherlock relished the sensory overload of John’s skin, John’s smell, John’s taste flooding his senses.

*

Sherlock woke alone in his bed in his grandmother’s house, pyjamas sticky with his own come. He cleaned himself up, showered, packed his bag, and slipped out of the house. He wouldn’t risk putting Mycroft in danger if Moriarty was tracking him—there was no reason to stay longer than one night, even if he wanted to.

He sent Mycroft a text hours later as he was boarding a train for Alsace-Lorraine.

 _I’m sorry. Thank you for listening.  
SH_

 _I have my people working on the information you gave me. I will pass on the results as soon as possible._

 _Be careful.  
MH_

 

******

 _**2 March 2012** _

Sherlock awoke and stared at the ceiling of yet another hospital. Through the haze of morphine, he heard the sound of someone shifting in a seat to his right. He carefully rolled his head to face the noise and saw Mycroft, his face pinched with concern.

“This is rapidly becoming a familiar scenario, Sherlock, you waking in a hospital bed and me waiting for you to do so.”

“Moran?”

“Got away.”

“Damn.”

“We are searching for his whereabouts.”

Sherlock snorted and rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling. “How did you know where to find me?”

Mycroft said, “You know I can’t tell you that. What happened, Sherlock?”

“Where are we?”

“You’re in hospital in Edinburgh.”

Sherlock nodded and said, “I caught up to Moran. He shot me, and he got away. It will take me weeks to find him again.”

“You’re not the only one looking for him, Sherlock. I’m sure my team will have a lead for you by the time you’re released.”

“What happened to me?”

“The bullet ruptured your spleen and nicked one of your vertebrae on the way out. No paralysis—it just nicked the bone. Your spleen was removed and you were given several pints of blood—you lost quite a bit of it on the way here. You’re expected to make a full recovery.”

“Good.” Sherlock could feel the morphine pulling him back under as Mycroft reached out and brushed his hand.

“Sleep, Sherlock.”

Sherlock dropped off into a dreamless sleep. Mycroft waited until he was sure his brother was asleep before leaving, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.


	7. Chapter 7

_  
**16 January 2011**   
_

John was bored. His shifts at the hospital were all well and good, and he got a bit of adrenaline rush from having to make snap decisions in the operating theatre, but that rush absolutely paled in comparison to chasing down criminals with Sherlock.

John normally worked during the day, taking a few night shifts here and there, so when he came home to his empty house, it was like walking into a graveyard it was so quiet. He hated it. His footsteps were too loud and echo in the hallway. He finally bought an iPod and a set of speakers and programmed the alarm on it to come on and play one of Sherlock’s favourite Mendelssohn pieces a few minutes before he would walk in the door so that he could pretend for a few minutes as he opened his front door that Sherlock was playing for him, and that when he walked in and peeked in the sitting room, he’d see his lover standing in front of the window, violin firmly tucked under his chin, swaying with the music.

It helped, but only a little. The house was still quiet even when he turned on the telly or listened to music (always solo violin)—it seemed like his whole world was muted without Sherlock in it. The feeling made John’s skin feel too small and tight.

He had tried at first to spend as little time as possible in the house: he took long walks around town, went to pubs, the cinema, even a concert (which had nearly done him in—the concertmaster looked too similar to Sherlock and John left at intermission and never went back), but it didn’t make him feel any better, so he stayed in. He purposefully kept his colleagues at arm’s length—he was always friendly at work, but he always declined their invitations to the pub. Eventually, they stopped asking and John didn’t mind it at all.

He spent his time at home reading everything he could about beekeeping. He took notes on hive types, clothing, smokers, honey production, flowers, how to extract honey. He even found a local British Beekeeper’s Association chapter and attended their meetings. He started purchasing the equipment he would need to get his first hive set up when the weather permitted. He even drew out a rough map of the garden, plotting out where he would put the hive and plant the flowers. Every time he saw the little map pinned to the sitting room wall, he smiled.

He allowed himself to open the bag with Sherlock’s scarf once every two weeks, and was always careful to set a timer so he wouldn’t keep it out so long that it lost Sherlock’s scent. The opening of the bag was almost a ceremony; first, he would check to see that the house was locked up, shutting off the lights as he went. Then, he went into his bedroom, carefully closing the door behind him before crossing to the bureau and pulling out the bag from the bottom drawer. He would set the bag on the precisely made bed (Sherlock had always made fun of him for insisting on hospital corners), strip off his clothes, take a deep breath and sit on the bed. He would take off his watch, set its timer for 8 minutes and place it on the nightstand before turning off the lamp and finally, finally open the bag and lift the scarf carefully out. He swung his legs up onto the bed and laid back, pressing a small corner of the scarf to his face and breathing deeply, desperate to press Sherlock’s scent into his pores. He’d breathe until his watch beeped and then reluctantly peel the scarf away and reverently place it back in the bag, sealing it up before clutching it to his chest. He would lie there like that for the entire night, not sleeping, just breathing and turning the ring on his finger, wishing for the thousandth time that it was Sherlock who had put it there.

The morning after the Scarf Night, John would forgo his usual breakfast in favour of eating two pieces of toast and a cup of tea, eaten standing up, just like the breakfasts he’d had at Baker Street. He’d usually put on a CD of one of Sherlock’s favourite composers while he ate, gently humming along as he put the plate and cup in the sink to wash up later. But the morning of January 17 brought a visit from Mycroft.

Mycroft knocked at a quarter past eleven. When John answered the door, Mycroft stepped inside and walked as briskly as John had ever seen him into the sitting room, where Mycroft actually paced a lap before remembering himself and sitting down.

John stood in the doorway, looking bemused as Mycroft settled on the edge of his chair, but the bemused look dropped off when he caught Mycroft’s expression.

“What is it?” John asked, feeling his heartbeat pick up.

“Sherlock’s fine.” Mycroft said without preamble. John nearly sagged with relief. “But you, Doctor Wilson, are not. Your security detail is picking up on some…unwanted attentions and thought it prudent to move you to another city.”

John bared his teeth. “What if I don’t want to leave?”

Mycroft smirked. “Don’t make me force you, Doctor. I’d rather avoid any unpleasantness.”

“Just like you’d rather avoid telling me anything about Sherlock?”

Mycroft sighed, “We’ve had this discussion, before, Doctor. In fact, I distinctly remember telling you after your first and only attempt to slip your security detail three months ago that you would not be able to go anywhere without us noticing. I’m doing this for both your good.” Mycroft’s face softened slightly. “I don’t know how much clearer I can make this. Sherlock would entrust your care to me because he knew I could keep you safe. I know that if you went to Sherlock, he would be so worried about keeping you safe that he would make mistakes, and those mistakes could cost both of you dearly.”

“That’s not the point—”

“But I will remind you, given that you may not remember from when I told you after your ‘escape attempt’ because you were still under the effect of the tranquilisers, that I have a tail for Sherlock who will protect him. Sherlock is as safe as I can make him given what he’s doing.”

John gritted his teeth and ground out, “That’s still not the point, Mycroft.”

“This discussion is over. I will not debate further with you on this matter.”

Mycroft didn’t raise his voice, but the menace behind it made John’s anger abate slightly. He huffed out a breath and sat down himself, pressing his hands together between his spread knees. “When am I leaving?”

“Today. No later than this evening. I’ll have people here in an hour to assist you in packing.”

“Thanks.”

Mycroft nodded and then sat back, steepling his fingers. He looked so much like Sherlock in that moment that John’s heart twinged and the last of his anger faded. John cleared his throat and asked, “What can you tell me about this…attention?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid. You’re not in any immediate danger, and the team thinks you’re not in any long-term danger either. This is merely a precaution.”

“Please tell me I don’t have to change my name again. I just got used to this one. And where am I going?”

“No, there’s no reason to assume that your identity has been compromised. And you’re going to Guildford. I do hope this is the last time we have to move you before Sherlock returns.”

“And do you have any idea when that might be?”

“No, Doctor, and I would tell you if I did,” Mycroft said, sadly. “As difficult as it may be for you to believe, I miss him, too.”

They both sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking of the man they missed. Finally, Mycroft cleared his throat and stood, crossing over to John and shaking his hand. “I’ll leave you to start packing, Doctor. The movers shall be here shortly.”

“Thank you,” John said as he stood to see Mycroft out. “Oh, one last thing?”

“Hmm?”

“I’d like a garden at the house in Guildford. For the bees, you know.”

Mycroft smiled. “It’s already been taken care of, Doctor. I’ll see you when I can.”

*

And sure enough, when John opened the door to his new house in Guildford, he went straight to the back garden, ignoring the keys for the new car Mycroft had given him and the folders that were sitting on the kitchen counter, and laughed when he saw the hives sitting in the exact places he had set on his map in Luton. He went back inside and opened the first of the folders, noting that he was once again a surgeon at Royal Surrey County Hospital. When he set the contract aside, a small envelope fell to the ground. John bent down and picked it up, noting the weight of the cardstock—it was expensive. He opened the envelope and withdrew a short note, written in an unfamiliar spiky hand:

 _I hope the garden and the hives meet your expectations. The flowers will be delivered in the spring._

 _\--M_

John smiled as he slid the note back into the envelope and went to explore the rest of the house.

 

******

 

 **  
_25 July 2012_   
**

The hives were flourishing. John had bottled the honey and given it out to a few of the colleagues he liked best at the hospital. Just like in Luton, John refused to let himself get too close to anyone, and he still returned home alone every night, rarely going down the pub or out to a restaurant. His colleagues here were a little more accepting of John’s eccentricities and stopped haranguing him to come out of a night a few weeks after he arrived in Guildford.

He liked it here. The house Mycroft had found for him was cosier than the one in Luton, but it still wasn’t Baker Street. The silence in this house was muffled by the thick carpet. John lit a fire nearly every night in the small wood-burning fireplace, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost picture the skull on the mantle, Sherlock pressed against him on the sofa. He hated opening his eyes to the reality of his empty house.

Tonight was one of John’s rare nights out. He had gone to the pub with Mary, one of the nurses at the hospital. She had insisted on celebrating the start of John’s first holiday since his return from Afghanistan (he had planned on writing up some of the cases he hadn’t written up before Sherlock…left) by taking him out for a friendly drink. John reluctantly agreed and soon found himself with a pint in front of him and Mary across from him as she sipped at a martini.

“Sooo,” she said after the usual chatter about patients and colleagues, “You want to talk about it?”

John blinked at her. “Talk about what?”

Mary leaned forward and laid her hand on top of his. “The reason why you look so broken down. You’re always so sad, even when you try to hide it, I can still see it. I’ve known you for quite a while, Martin, and in all that time, I don’t think I’ve ever seen your smile reach your eyes. I just thought that you should know I’d listen if you wanted to talk about it.”

And John did want to talk about it. He hadn’t spoken Sherlock’s name to anyone except Mycroft, and when he thought about it, he realised he wanted to keep Sherlock’s name to himself. But he wanted to tell Mary, who was looking at him with warm brown eyes, about how lonely he was, how keenly he felt the absence of his lover, how quiet his house was, even with the CD player blasting out Vivaldi.

So John talked. He told Mary about how he had lost someone he loved. He wasn’t dead, he reassured her, but they were separated and couldn’t be together. Mary’s eyes widened sympathetically as he told his story. John lost count of how many pints he had, but by the time he wound down his story, the world was looking distinctly blurry.

“‘m sorry, Mary, didn’t mean to tell you all that.”

“No, Martin, it’s fine. I’m glad you did—you seem a bit lighter now.”

He did feel a bit lighter; it felt good knowing that someone other than Mycroft knew what John was going through. He slid out of the booth and stood, swaying just a little.

“Let me get you a cab,” Mary said as she stood also, looping her arm through his.

He went home alone. It took a lot not to call out for Sherlock as soon as he walked in the door; he had to swallow back the first syllable of his lover’s name before it could break free, and doing that made his throat burn. He walked into the kitchen and forced down two glasses of water in an effort to keep his hangover from being too horrendous in the morning before he slumped down the hall to bed. He collapsed facedown in his bed after stripping off his clothes. He didn’t bother with his pyjamas—if he slept naked, it was easier to imagine that Sherlock would come and crawl under the covers with him at some point during the night.

John rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He let his mind drift as he ran his fingers in a random pattern on his stomach like he had done to Sherlock countless times.

He and Sherlock had made love for the first time two weeks before the Incident at the Pool. That night was one that John held close to his heart, bringing out the memory of it only on nights like this one where he let himself remember and feel how lonely he was.

This night was one where he let himself remember that first time.

*

Sherlock had been conducting an experiment involving a pig’s liver and some acid when John had slipped into the kitchen and carefully pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s temple.

“I’m going to bed,” John murmured as he kissed Sherlock’s cheek. “Are you coming?”

“In a while,” Sherlock said. “I’m nearly done here.” He turned his head and caught John’s lips with his own, slipping his tongue into John’s mouth. When John pulled back, there was a glint in his eyes that he knew Sherlock wouldn’t be able to ignore.

John slipped upstairs to their room and crawled naked into their bed. He turned off the lamp and laid back, waiting impatiently for Sherlock to come upstairs. He must’ve drifted off for a while because the next thing he was aware of was Sherlock’s cold hands on his stomach and Sherlock’s cold nose nuzzling into his neck.

“Mmph!”

Sherlock pulled back and grinned down at John before swooping in for a messy kiss that stole their breaths. His hands were everywhere, John thought as Sherlock pressed and stroked and kneaded his body, pulling gasps and broken moans as sparks of sensation pulsed under Sherlock’s fingers. John threw his head back in invitation as Sherlock licked and nipped at his exposed throat before pressing his forehead tightly into John’s neck and letting his fingers trail down between John’s legs, pressing in behind John’s balls and letting them rest lightly against the entrance to John’s body.

All of John’s breath left him in a rush when he felt Sherlock’s fingers just there, barely putting pressure against him. John pushed back against Sherlock’s long, clever fingers, and when he caught his breath again, he let out a soft keening wail of _please yes more please there ohgodthere_. Sherlock smiled and pulled his hand away, making John gasp, “What? What’s wrong? Why are you stopping?” before he heard the distinct snap of the lubricant’s lid closing and lust coiled deep in his gut.

He could barely feel the pressure of Sherlock’s fingers brushing against his hole as Sherlock leaned down and breathed into his ear, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, please yes,” John breathed as Sherlock carefully pressed one slicked finger inside and all of John’s breath left his lungs for the second time that night.

The slow burn and stretch was slightly uncomfortable, but Sherlock, ever attentive to the microexpressions on John’s face, moved slowly and carefully until finally, he had worked three fingers inside him and was gently brushing John’s prostate on every slow thrust in. John’s breaths hitched every time Sherlock brushed his prostate, and his hips were undulating in time to every slow thrust of Sherlock’s fingers.

“I want more,” John moaned softly.

Sherlock handed him the lube and leaned back, gently pulling his fingers from John’s body. John spread lube on his fingers and cupped his lover’s cock, spreading the lube as he stroked up and down. Sherlock’s head tipped back and he hissed in pleasure before finally sputtering, “stop, stop, I’m going to come if you keep that up.”

John let go and laid back, pointedly drawing his knees up until his feet were flat on the bed. When Sherlock lined himself up and carefully pushed forward, John let out a moan and clutched at Sherlock’s shoulders, pulling him in closer until finally he was completely inside.

“All right?” Sherlock asked as he leaned down and kissed John deeply, holding himself still to give John time to adjust.

“God, yes. _Move,_ Sherlock.”

And Sherlock moved.

John pulled him down all the way until Sherlock’s body completely covered his and relished the feeling of being surrounded by this wonderful, strange, infuriating man. John arched up, letting Sherlock’s thrusts rub his cock against Sherlock’s stomach, leaving a trail of precome that slicked everything and made him glide against Sherlock with each push and pull.

Soon, it was too much and John felt everything in him tighten as his orgasm rushed down his spine. “Sherlock, Sherlock, I’m…I’m going to, _ohgod_ ” he moaned as Sherlock captured his mouth in another messy kiss that mostly teeth and tongue before he whispered, “Do it, John. I want to feel you shatter around me.”

John’s back arched as he wailed through one of the most intense orgasms he’d had. He barely heard Sherlock’s breathy encouragement as Sherlock’s hips stuttered and then stilled as he spilled in John.

Sherlock collapsed on top of him as soon as he could move after his own orgasm. John grunted a bit but ran one hand up and down Sherlock’s back and kissed his throat.

“That was incredible.” John said after long moments.

Sherlock snorted, “It’s just endorphins, John. Simple chemistry.”

John lightly smacked Sherlock’s shoulder. “Do you have to spoil everything?”

Sherlock propped himself up on his elbows and carefully pulled his hips back, letting himself slip from John’s body. “You wouldn’t have me any other way,” he said as he climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom, wetting a flannel before walking back into the room and gently cleaning John up before carelessly wiping himself off.

As much as he hated to admit it, John knew he was right. “No, no I wouldn’t.”

Sherlock gave him a small smile and crawled into bed, cuddling against John. John ran his hand through Sherlock’s curls until his breaths evened out. John glanced down and smiled as he watched Sherlock sleep. He pressed a soft kiss to Sherlock’s head and in his softest whisper, said, “I love you,” and let his own eyes close.

*

When he woke the next morning, full of a crushing loneliness as reality crashed back in, John groaned and decided that he was never drinking again—nothing was worth feeling the pain he tried to keep pushed down every day this acutely. He spent the first day of his vacation in bed, staring at the ceiling, willing his heart to stitch itself back together enough so he could function.

It never fully did.

 

******

 

 _  
**4 March 2013**   
_

 

John dropped his teabag at the loud, insistent knock on his front door. He peered out the peephole and saw Mycroft standing there, looking impatient. John drew back the bolt and opened the door, taken aback at Mycroft’s pale, haggard face and rumpled suit.

“Mycroft? What’s happened?”

Mycroft gave him a strained smile. “Can I come in, Doctor Watson?”

John blinked at the use of his real name and opened the door wider, gesturing Mycroft through.

Mycroft nodded his thanks and stepped inside, heading, as he always did, for the sitting room. Instead of taking a seat, he stared out the window into the garden, looking at the four hives John had set up over the years.

“What. Happened?”

Mycroft, still staring out the window, said, “He would have loved to see these hives of yours, Doctor.”

John’s knees nearly gave out at the use of the past tense.

Mycroft turned then and looked at John with a sad smile. “Do sit down, Doctor Watson.”

John’s hands gripped the armrests hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “What’s happened? I won’t ask you again,” he said, injecting as much venom into his voice as he could.

“I’m afraid I have some distressing news. I have reason to believe that Sherlock may have died in Switzerland.”

John’s heart nearly stopped. “What? How? When?”

“Robertson, the man who was tailing Sherlock, sent a report three days ago from Merinigen, Switzerland, saying that Sherlock had found Moriarty there, but Sherlock disappeared for several hours. When Robertson managed to find Sherlock at the Reichenbach Falls, all Robertson found was Sherlock’s coat and two sets of muddy prints, both of which were at the cliff’s edge. There was no sign of any prints heading away from the cliff back down the path. Search parties have not found any bodies, so there is hope, but I fear we must assume the worst.”

John was silent, trying to control his breathing to keep the scream of denial from breaking free. When he was sure he could speak without screaming or crying, he looked Mycroft straight in the eye and said, “I won’t believe it. Unless you bring me Sherlock’s body, Mycroft, I will not believe that he is gone.”

Mycroft’s face lost a little of the tension it had been carrying. “I will, of course, keep you apprised of any developments, Doctor Watson.”

“John. Please, call me John.”

Mycroft nodded.

The two of them looked down (Mycroft at his feet, John at his lap) for a moment before John cleared his throat and asked, “Can I go home? I mean, if Moriarty is gone, and I’m assuming he is, then I should be able to go back to London. If Sherlock’s still alive, he’ll head back to Baker Street as soon as he can, and I want to wait for him there.”

Mycroft pursed his lips thoughtfully before nodding. “I think that would be the best course of action. I will inform Mrs. Hudson of your return, and I will make sure that there are movers here to help you pack. You can keep the car and this house—they’re yours.”

John blinked. “Thank you, Mycroft. Really, thank you. For everything.”

Mycroft smiled at him. “As I said a long time ago, John, I would do anything for my family, and that includes you.”

*

Four days later, John was back at Baker Street, which hadn’t changed at all. Mrs. Hudson, after she’d recovered from the shock of seeing him, said that Mycroft had paid their rent and would continue to do so, so he wasn’t to worry about a thing. She’d been upstairs to hoover and dust, but that was all she did. She had, of course, thrown out Sherlock’s experiments years ago, but other than that, she had touched nothing.

Walking into the familiar sitting room and seeing the ugly wallpaper nearly did John in. Sleeping in their bed for the first time in nearly three years broke his heart. The bed felt too big and empty without Sherlock sprawled over it. John spent his first night in Baker Street staring at the empty spot where Sherlock would have been. He didn’t sleep at all.

He held his breath each morning as he went downstairs, hoping that today would be the day that Sherlock would be sitting at the kitchen table, acting as if he’d never left. But Sherlock was never there, and with each day that passed, John felt his hope flicker just a little more.

 

******

 

 **  
_10 April 2013_   
**

John had the day off from the hospital (Mycroft came through yet again and secured him a position at Bart’s), and had been out for a walk in his and Sherlock’s favourite park when a familiar profile caught his eye. He had had far too many moments when someone who matched Sherlock’s features (the right height, or hair color, long dark coat, slight build) had caught his eye to let himself hope too much, but he always took a second glance, just in case.

When he looked at the man again, his heart caught in his throat.

 _It was **him.**_

Sherlock was standing on the bridge over the small pond, leaning on the rail and looking down at his clasped hands.

John couldn’t breathe, and his world greyed out for a second as his knees threatened to give way. He opened his mouth to shout Sherlock’s name when Sherlock, who must have sensed that someone was staring at him, looked up and met John’s eyes.

John froze in place, unable to force his legs to move, to run to his lover and grab him up in a hug and kiss him to within an inch of his life. Sherlock, he realised, looked just as shocked as John felt as his grey eyes widened and his mouth moved in a silent “John?”

John blinked and suddenly Sherlock was in front of him, staring at him as if he’d seen a ghost. Sherlock’s hand was frozen in the air, hovering an inch above John’s cheek as his eyes roved desperately over John’s face, drinking in every detail.

“Am I dreaming?” Sherlock whispered. “You can’t be real. I must be dreaming, I must be—”

“Sherlock,” John interrupted, “You’re not dreaming. I’m really here.” And with that, he reached up and tangled his hands in Sherlock’s hair, tugging him down into a deep, passionate kiss, one that said _I missed you I’m here you’re alive and I’m alive and everything will be all right again I love you I love you I love you_.


	8. Chapter 8

_  
**14 June 2012**   
_

Sherlock had left Edinburgh nearly a month ago, and was tracking down Moran. The bastard had shot him in March and laid Sherlock up in hospital for a week and a half as he recovered from his splenectomy. His back was still tender courtesy of the almost healed nicked vertebra—if he moved suddenly or twisted the wrong way, his back would scream in protest, forcing his face to twist in a pained grimace. More than once, some kind soul had approached him during one of the spasms and enquired if he needed assistance, only to be sharply rebuffed. Sherlock abhorred doctors and people showering him with concern (the exception being John, of course), and snapped at anyone who dared to offer any sympathetic words.

He was back in New York, having been there over a year ago chasing down Moriarty. Mycroft’s network had picked up some recent upswing in crime in New York that fit Moriarty’s pattern, so Sherlock returned. He’d been here for a week, and was getting no closer to Moriarty.

He roamed the streets late at night, forcing himself to avoid the drug dealers, or at the very least, not acknowledge their existence. The sweet siren call of the cocaine he knew he could easily get from nearly any corner was nearly overpowering. He craved the bliss, the high, the thought that for just a few minutes his mind would blank and he wouldn’t have to remember that John was no longer here. Then the horror of that thought would harden his resolve to avoid giving in to the temptation. John would have been disappointed in him. Sherlock was horrified at himself for even thinking of buying himself some respite before his quest was over. No, he would be strong; he would not give in, no matter how much his traitorous brain, remembering the euphoria of the high, pleaded with him for just one hit, just one and then done.

Sherlock knew that it would never be just one hit.

*

Another week passed before Sherlock found a note pinned to the pillow in his hotel room in Queens.

 _Better luck next time, darling!_

 _-M x_

Sherlock pulled on a pair of gloves and carefully pulled the pin from the pillow, inspecting it closely. Surgical steel, three inches long. Similar to the pins used to hold joints together. The implication was unmistakable, although John had not required pins to hold his shoulder in place. Sherlock felt one corner of his mouth lift in a brief smile. _Moriarty had gotten something wrong. A mistake. Hopefully, the first of many,_ Sherlock thought as he carefully sat the pin down and picked up the note. Heavy cardstock, blue ink, written with a Montblanc pen—the nib was at least twelve weeks old. Bohemian stationery. Sherlock removed his gloves and ran his hand over the cardstock. There was a small mark at the bottom right corner—a little arrangement of dots in a particular circular pattern. Sherlock had seen this pattern before, but couldn’t place it right away. He pushed the pattern to a corner of his brain and let himself puzzle over it as he devoted a larger portion of his hard drive to determining how long the note had been on his pillow and how someone had broken into his room and left again without disturbing anything.

Fifteen minutes later, he remembered where he had seen that pattern before. The fake Vermeer—one cluster of the stars in the background had been in this pattern. Sherlock pulled out his phone and looked up Vermeer. Following a hunch, he clicked through screens until he found a list of the man’s most famous works. He stopped when he saw an image of _Girl with a Pearl Earring_ ⎯the dot pattern on the note matched the star pattern in the fake Vermeer matched the shape of the girl’s pearl earring. Noting where the painting was now held, Sherlock booked a ticket for The Hague, Netherlands. He was getting close, he could feel it.

 

******

 

 **  
_20 February 2013_   
**

Sherlock finally caught Moran outside the National Gallery in London. It was 3 in the morning, he had been awake for over twenty-four hours, and all he wanted to do was end this.

He blinked against the snow and held the gun perfectly steady. “Where is he?”

Moran chuckled and spat out a mouthful of blood. Sherlock had shot him in the gut (not as accurate as John), and Moran was lying in the abandoned alley, laughing at him. Sherlock stepped forward, gun still pointed firmly at Moran’s heart, and snapped, “Where is he?”

Moran laughed again. “Somewhere you won’t find him.” He coughed and spat out another mouthful of blood as he grinned a death’s head grin at Sherlock.

Sherlock very deliberately put his foot down on the wound and pressed with all his strength, pushing aside the sick feeling he got as Moran screamed in pain. “I can make it hurt worse,” he hissed, trying to make himself sound convincing. This was not him, was not what he wanted to do, and he could feel the weight of John’s disapproving glare, if John had been alive to give one.

“Oh, you’re not as good at this as your little pet would’ve been. Miss him?”

Sherlock ground his shoe in harder. “Don’t you dare speak of him.”

Moran grimaced and hissed, “You’ll never find Moriarty. He’s too clever, too well-hidden. You’ve come close, Holmes, but not close enough.” He chuckled again and went still, Sherlock’s foot still pressed deeply into his wound.

Sherlock shoved the gun back into his waistband in disgust. He pulled out his mobile and texted Mycroft:

 _Moran dead. Body outside Nat’l Gallery, London._

 _No leads on Moriarty._

 _SH_

His mobile buzzed almost instantly.

 _Body will be taken care of._

 _Come see me._

 _MH_

Sherlock frowned at his mobile and melted back into the shadows. He watched dispassionately as Mycroft’s team showed up ten minutes later and cleaned up the mess Sherlock had left. When the scene was pristine, he turned and left, heading for the cemetery where John was buried.

He stopped in front of John’s headstone, one hand gripping the box of John’s ashes he kept in his trouser pocket. “Hello,” he breathed as he bent down to clear away the light dusting of snow on the top of the headstone. “I can’t stay long, John, but I wanted to tell you that I’m getting closer. Moran is dead, and you would not have been proud of what I did to him, but it was necessary. Once Moriarty finds out that he’s dead, he’ll make himself known to me, especially because of what I did to him.”

He squatted and brushed more snow from John’s name. “I miss you. I only hope that when this is all over I can see you again. I love you.” He stood and walked backward until John’s headstone was no longer in sight, and then made the long walk back to the cheap hotel he was staying at, carefully avoiding the CCTV cameras.

 

******

 _  
**1 March 2013**   
_

Two days ago, Sherlock received a text on his supposedly secure mobile from Moriarty. It was a simple alphanumeric code that pointed him to Merinigen, Switzerland, more specifically, Reichenbach Falls. Also included in the code was a date, March 1, and a time, 3:30 PM.

It was 3:29 PM on March 1, and Sherlock was standing at the Falls, hands clasped behind his back, waiting.

At 3:30 on the dot, Moriarty’s voice rang out from behind him.

“I know a secret that even the great, genius Sherlock Holmes doesn’t know.”

Sherlock turned around. Moriarty looked haggard, his designer suit ill-fitting. Sherlock repressed a smile at the thought that he had done that to this madman. “Don’t bother making me beg you to reveal it; I won’t beg you for anything.”

Moriarty smirked. “Not even if it had to do with John Watson?”

Sherlock’s heart froze.

Moriarty’s smile grew wider. “Ah, interesting. I thought that name might still hold some meaning to you. After all, he is your heart, isn’t he?” He stepped closer to Sherlock, closer enough that he could lean forward and whisper in his ear. “Johnny-boy’s still alive.”

Sherlock snarled and reared back. “You’re lying.”

“I have proof.”

Sherlock’s mind was racing. _John was dead, this was just a ruse, ignore it ignore it ignore it it’s not true he’s lying lying lying oh god what if he’s not what if it’s true what if john is waiting for me john oh john i’m sorry_

Moriarty’s voice purred in his ear again as the shorter man pressed a knife into Sherlock’s stomach. “But the only part of you dear old Johnny’s going to see is your heart. You see, you took my pet away from me, and now, I’m going to make sure your little pet suffers for what you did.”

Sherlock deflected the knife a second too late as Moriarty stabbed in. He pulled the knife out of the shallow wound and snatched at Moriarty’s lapels, dragging the man closer to the edge of the Falls. They struggled for control of the knife, twisting and snarling at each other before Sherlock managed to push Moriarty off balance. The man teetered on the edge of the cliff, mouth open in that same O of surprise he’d used at the Pool, and then fell over the edge, grabbing at Sherlock as he did.

Sherlock managed to catch his balance, flailing his arms wildly before taking a small step back. He peered over the edge, pressing one hand to the shallow wound in his stomach, and watched Moriarty’s body fall into the raging river below. He stood there for a long time, an internal debate raging over whether or not he should jump. But Moriarty’s mocking voice telling him that John was alive rang out above the voices in his head screaming at him to just jump, to follow John into death so they could be together. If John really was alive, then Sherlock owed it to him to find out, to be absolutely sure he was dead before he followed John.

He stepped back from the edge and carefully stepped in his own footprints on the way back down the Falls.

 

******

 

 **  
_10 April 2013_   
**

Sherlock took a deep breath of the late morning London air as he left St Pancras. It had taken him over a month to get back to London because he had gone deep underground to make sure he hadn’t been followed from Merinigen, that one last vestige of Moriarty’s organisation wasn’t out there waiting for him to reveal himself. So he had taken his time, doubled back on his route, stayed in seedy lodging and took great pains to disguise himself. Once he was satisfied that no one was following him, he booked a Eurostar ticket and went home.

But now that he was here, he didn’t quite know where to go. When he had been here for Moran, he had only stayed in town for two days, most of which was spent in his seedy hotel. He wanted to go to Baker Street, and yet he was afraid to go there⎯if John was alive, then that would be a likely place for him to be, and Sherlock didn’t want his small sliver of hope to die just yet. So he wandered around London, reacquainting himself with his beloved city, delaying his return to Baker Street for as long as he could stand it. He was careful to avoid the CCTV cameras; he didn’t want Mycroft knowing he was back yet.

He found himself heading for Regent’s Park, his and John’s favourite park to walk through of an afternoon, and let himself wander the paths of the park until he came to John’s favourite bridge. He leaned over the railing and let his head drop down, remembering all the times he and John had stopped on this very bridge. John would always lay his hands over Sherlock’s where they gripped the rail and squeeze them gently. Sherlock closed his eyes, wishing that he could feel that again.

An odd sensation, like someone was staring at him, broke him from his reverie. He lifted his head and looked straight ahead and nearly fainted.

It was John.

John was standing not twenty feet away and John was alive and breathing and why wasn’t he moving? Sherlock felt his mouth form the name that had been behind every thought for the past three years and then he was moving. He came to a halt, hand hovering a inch above John’s cheek as he breathed, ““Am I dreaming? You can’t be real. I must be dreaming, I must be—”

“Sherlock,” John interrupted, “You’re not dreaming. I’m really here.” And with that, he reached up and tangled his hands in Sherlock’s hair, tugging him down into a deep, passionate kiss. Sherlock’s arms came up and locked John into an embrace that pulled John up onto his toes. His tongue delved deeply into John’s mouth as he tried to pull the doctor into himself, to make John such a part of him that they would never be separated again.

John broke the kiss, pulling back so he could look Sherlock in the eye. “Christ, I missed you.”

“I thought you were dead. Mycroft told me you were dead.” Sherlock said, rubbing his thumb on John’s back, eyes roving over John’s face, cataloguing the differences time and loneliness and loss had wreaked.

“I know.”

Sherlock’s eyes closed, one hand leaving John’s waist to pull out a small box from his coat pocket. “He told me you were cremated, that he had taken some of your ashes to give to me. I had them tested⎯they match your DNA. You have a headstone, for god’s sake. I’ve visited it. I’ve carried you with me for three years, John.” He held out the box. “He gave me this box before I left and I’ve carried it with me and I want to know why he lied to me.”

John’s eyes were shining with unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Sherlock. I never knew he did this, that he took it that far.” He took the box from Sherlock, turning it over gently in his hands. Sherlock’s attention was caught by a glint of gold on John’s left ring finger.

“What is that?” He snatched John’s hand and shoved the ring in front of John’s face.

John’s eyes closed and a flash of guilt crossed his face. Sherlock’s heart nearly stopped before he ruthlessly pushed his hurt down deep inside him, allowing his anger to show on his face.

“Sherlock, it’s not what you think⎯”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Sherlock sneered. “It’s a wedding ring, John. Something you wear when you are married. I’m happy for you, John, really. I’ll leave you to go back to your wife.” He started to turn away, nearly forgetting about the box John still held when he was stopped by John’s iron grip on his arm.

John spun him back to face him and bit out, “Sherlock, wait, I can explain⎯”

“There’s nothing to explain, John. You’ve obviously moved on, and that’s the end of it. There’s nothing else to say except good bye.” John gaped at him, unable to answer. Sherlock curled his lip as he pulled his arm from John’s grip, snatched the box from John’s suddenly loose grasp, and stalked away, leaving John staring after him.

When he didn’t hear John’s footsteps running after him, he let his heart, which had flared into joyous life when he saw John standing there, close back off again. He went back to Baker Street, hardly noticing that the front door had been left unlocked as he made his way up the steps and into his flat. He didn’t even pause to look around as he headed straight for the familiar sofa and threw himself into it, pressing his face into the cushions as he let himself cry for the life he had thought he had regained for one brief moment before it had been snatched away from him the next.

 

part ix


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely apologize for the delay. For those of you who don't know, my grandfather died on the 14th, and I was home in Ohio until the 20th, and unable to really write until just recently. I hope to have part x (and if there is an epilogue, the epilogue), up in the next two weeks.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been reading and commenting so far! I really appreciate it.

_**10 April 2013** _

John forced himself to finish his errands before returning to Baker Street. He suspected that Sherlock would head there after their too brief meeting in the park (he could still feel Sherlock’s lips on his; he kept licking his lips in the hope of capturing the taste of Sherlock’s skin against his own), and it was with some trepidation that John opened the door to their flat, quietly trudging up the stairs nearly an hour after Sherlock had fled the park. Sherlock was lying on the sofa, face pressed into the back cushions. He didn’t stir when John set the shopping on the kitchen table.

John’s heart broke a little as he crossed the sitting room and crouched down next to Sherlock’s body. Every muscle in his lover’s body was stiff, as if he was bracing himself for some unknown hurt that John would deliver.

“Sherlock.”

No response.

John sighed and reached out, gently brushing his hand over Sherlock’s curls, barely disturbing them. “Sherlock, please.” Sherlock drew a long shuddering breath, but did not turn. “Sherlock, please at least look at me. I need to know if you’re okay.” John’s hand moved from Sherlock’s curls to Sherlock’s shoulder, resting warm against his lover’s shoulder blade, fingers curling over his collarbone, still too prominent.

John waited for several minutes, one finger tracing the ridge of Sherlock’s collarbone, before he broke the silence again. “You know,” he whispered, “the one thing I was most afraid of for these three years wasn’t that you would die⎯I knew you were far too clever to let that happen⎯but that you would come back and you would have forgotten what we had, that you would turn me away.” He swallowed thickly and looked up at their ceiling, blinking hard to keep the tears from falling.

Sherlock’s shoulder tensed even further. “I wasn’t the one who turned you away.” John inhaled sharply, but Sherlock ignored that, flipping himself over and staring right into John’s eyes as he spat, “ _You_ were the one who turned away. You were alive and I didn’t know it. You didn’t care enough to come after me. You abandoned me. You turned your back on me and you left me to get married to some woman. I⎯” he broke off, furious and frustrated and unable to form words anymore. There was a great howling emptiness in him. John was _right there_ and he was no longer Sherlock’s. He didn’t have permission to touch John anymore. His fingers curled into the fabric of his trousers tightly enough to turn his knuckles white. Unable to look at John any longer, he clenched his eyes shut, letting his thoughts howl through his body: _Not mine he’s not mine not anymore and what was the point of coming back if I can’t have him anymore he lied to me three years ago when he said always and I will never forgive him that lie never oh John John John John I missed you why did you leave why didn’t you come after me I thought you were different from everyone else I thought you’d never leave me but you’re really just like everyone else and that goes against everything I thought I knew about you._

 _I still need you John leave her and come back to me where you belong come back don’t leave me alone again_.

“Sherlock?” John shook his lover’s shoulder, willing Sherlock to open his eyes. Every muscle in Sherlock’s body was radiating the man’s anger, sorrow, and fear, and seeing the man he had waited for for so many years fall apart like this was enough to make John snap. He gathered all of his willpower and wrenched his hand from Sherlock’s shoulder.

The abrupt loss of contact jolted Sherlock’s brain out of the repeating loop of _don’t leave don’t leave don’t leave_ and his eyes opened in time to see John’s head drop as he buried his face in his hands and sank fully down onto the floor.

John was whispering something into his hands that Sherlock couldn’t quite make out. “What? What is it, John?”

John left his head in his hands and mumbled, “I am a widower.”

Sherlock’s heart stopped. He opened his mouth to say something, anything cutting, to keep John from telling the story of his betrayal. He didn’t want to hear the words John would say that would describe how he had loved and lost someone who wasn’t him. But John lifted his head, and the look in his eyes was enough to freeze the words in Sherlock’s throat.

“I lost someone close to me, Sherlock, someone who was closer to me than my own heart,” he paused, dropping his gaze as he swallowed thickly, twisting the ring on his finger.

Sherlock sneered, “And who was this lucky woman?”

“It wasn’t a woman, for fuck’s sake!” John leapt to his feet, pacing furiously in front of the sofa as he breathed heavily through his nose, forcing back his desire to punch the infuriating man on the couch. He stopped pacing after a minute, fists clenched at his side as he towered over Sherlock. “It was _you_ , Sherlock. Yes, Mycroft made my cover story say I had married a woman who later died, and yes, he was the one who put the ring in with my new clothes to fit that story, but for God’s sake, Sherlock, after what we said three years ago, do you really think I could ever⎯” he broke off, staring at some point over Sherlock’s head as he gathered himself.

Sherlock’s heart started beating again, fast and thready, as his anger immediately melted away. He had a feeling he knew what John would have said to finish that sentence, and it made his already fast pulse quicken further. He licked his suddenly dry lips. “John, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed⎯I should’ve known you’d never⎯I’m sorry if it seemed like I didn’t trust you.”

John finally, finally sank down on the sofa next to him, letting their knees brush. He nervously twisted his fingers in his lap before Sherlock reached over and closed his hands over John’s. John looked up and met his gaze. Sherlock smiled gently at him, leaned in and kissed him softly, letting their lips linger as they kissed again and again until they forgot everything but the feel of each other’s breath against their lips.

When Sherlock finally pulled back, John’s eyes were no longer worried, but hazy and soft with pleasure. Sherlock stood, gently tugging on John’s hand. “We need to talk, and this will be a very long conversation⎯one I’d prefer to be lying down for.”

John shivered in anticipation (he clearly remembered what happened the last time Sherlock had said those words to him) as he whispered, “Bed?”

“Bed.”

 

******

 

 _**3 April 2010** _

John had just pressed “Submit” on his latest blog post when Sherlock caught his eye from across the living room. The look the detective was giving him was enough to set John’s heart racing in anticipation. They had been lovers only two weeks, but there was something _there_ , some inexplicable connection that they shared (John had seen it in Sherlock’s eyes, knew that Sherlock had seen it in his, too) that had flared into life from the moment they met at Bart’s. John had never been so comfortable with another person before, had never _fit_ with someone like this before. For the first time in his life, everything just seemed right, and he reveled in that feeling, afraid to hold on too tightly for fear it would slip away.

But now Sherlock was looking at, no, scrutinising him, and the look made John shiver. He licked his lips, noticing how Sherlock’s gaze instantly focussed on his mouth. When John let a slow smile spread across his face, Sherlock blinked and came back to himself, looking John in the eye again.

“John, I⎯” He stopped and dropped his gaze, clearly uncomfortable. “I would like to talk to you, if that’s all right.”

John felt his heart sink into his stomach. _Here it comes, I’ve been waiting for him to break it off, to tell me that, no, he’d really prefer to be married to his work and I’ll go back to being alone in a dingy little flat and I’ll have my gun and no one with me and I’ll⎯_. Some of his panic must have shown on his face, because Sherlock was suddenly in front of him, peering into his eyes with a look of concern. “I’ve said something wrong, haven’t I? It’s nothing important, John, just some things I’ve been thinking over. But it might take a while, and I’d rather be comfortable, so can we go to bed?” He leaned down and pressed his lips to John’s. It took a moment for John to respond, but when Sherlock’s words had sunk in, he responded eagerly, licking at the seam in Sherlock’s lips until his lover granted him entrance and they lost track of time as they kissed.

When Sherlock slipped his hands under John’s shirt, John broke the kiss, biting his lip as Sherlock brushed one of his nipples. “Bed?” Sherlock asked, darkly, as he ran his fingers over the sensitive nub.

“Bed,” John breathed, pulling at Sherlock’s shirt buttons.

*

After, when they were still breathing hard, Sherlock curled up on his side, facing John as he brought his knees up to press against John’s own. John smiled at him as he stroked one hand up and down Sherlock’s side, pressing just hard enough so he didn’t inadvertently tickle his lover. “You distracted me, earlier,” Sherlock said with a smile.

“Mmm, I did, didn’t I? What did you want to talk about?”

Sherlock bit his lip and glanced down at the mattress. John waited patiently. It was rare that Sherlock admitted to wanting or needing to talk about anything, and John knew it couldn’t be easy for him to break his usual reticence. He let the silence settle over them like a blanket, keeping his breathing calm and even, stroking Sherlock’s side in a slow, lazy rhythm.

Sherlock took a deep breath and began, “I’ve never done this with anyone before; there’s never been anyone I cared about enough to keep. No one’s cared about me enough to stay.”

John leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to Sherlock’s forehead, keeping his lips there as Sherlock continued, “I’m scared, John. For the first time in my life, I’m scared of losing something infinitely precious. I know what I’m like, and I know that there is an inevitability to this…relationship we share.”

John brought his hand up to Sherlock’s jaw, gently turning Sherlock’s face up so he could look down at him. “Sherlock, there’s no inevitable ending, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“But you don’t know that!”

“Neither do you.”

“I have dreams, John, nearly every night, of you leaving me, whether by your choice or not. I’ve seen nearly every permutation of how this relationship will end. I drive you away, you find some woman and get married and leave me, I die, you die, it all ends the same way⎯I’m alone. It’s inevitable, John. One day, you will leave me and I will be alone and it will kill me.”

“Stop it,” John bit out. “If you keep thinking like that, then yes, it could happen. Don’t give up on us before we even get started. Christ, Sherlock, we’ve only been together for a few months. If I haven’t run screaming by now, I can’t imagine I would in the future.” He gave Sherlock a wry grin, which was not returned.

Sherlock scowled at the mattress again, and John sighed. “Sherlock, would you look at me please?” After a moment, Sherlock looked up at him. “Thank you,” John said softly, lightly rubbing his thumb over Sherlock’s sharp cheekbone. “Tell me what you want.” Sherlock’s brow creased in confusion, and John hastened to clarify, “Tell me what you want from your life, from us, from this relationship we’re creating. Where do you want to be in thirty years?”

Sherlock carefully considered the question for a moment.

John held his breath, waiting.

“I have been told my entire life that I have no heart, no feelings, no emotions. That I’m a freak and no one would ever want me for anything other than my brain. I am jealous and possessive and no one in their right mind would want someone like me in their life. I resigned myself long ago to living alone, being alone. I gave up on finding someone to keep with me.” Sherlock drew a deep, shuddering breath before reaching up and clasping John’s hand, still cupping Sherlock’s face. “But then I met you, and you cracked my heart open, John, and I don’t want to give you up. And I want… God, I can’t even find words to describe what I want!” He exhaled loudly through his nose, nostrils flaring with each breath.

Finally, he composed himself and said in a rush, “I want this. You and me, together at the end of the day. I want to come home to you at night and wake up next to you in the morning. I want to know how many wrinkles you’ll have when you’re eighty. I want….I want everything you are willing to give me, John. No matter how much or how little that may be. I want to keep you with me, for as long as I can.”

John blinked back tears as he kissed Sherlock deeply. “I want that, too,” he whispered when they broke apart. “We’ll keep each other forever.”

“You can’t promise that, John. No one can have forever.”

“I can and I will promise that,” John whispered fiercely as he gathered Sherlock close. “We will have it, we will.”

Sherlock pressed his face into John’s neck and stayed there for a long time, breaths evening out. Just as John thought Sherlock had fallen asleep, the detective’s voice broke the comfortable silence, making John jump.

“I have had one other dream,” Sherlock admitted.

“Oh?”

“There’s a cottage by the sea and we live there after we’ve retired. You’re writing up our cases and I’m keeping bees. It’s perfect there, John, I wish you could see it.”

John smiled. “Is that what you want to do in thirty years? Have a cottage and bees?”

Sherlock nodded, a gentle movement against John’s neck.

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

Sherlock kissed John’s throat and let himself relax. _John won’t leave I never have to be alone again I love you John I love you I love you I love you_ he thought as he drifted off to sleep.

Once John was sure his lover was asleep, he pressed a careful, soft kiss into Sherlock’s hair and said so quietly that his lips barely moved, “I love you.” He repeated those words over and over until he, too, slept, cradled in the arms of his lover.

If John had known that this would be the last night for three long, lonely years that he would sleep in Sherlock’s arms, perhaps he would have woken Sherlock and said those words aloud. If Sherlock had known that the next morning would bring the beginning of the case that ended three sleepless days later in a darkened swimming pool, perhaps he wouldn’t have answered Lestrade’s call. Perhaps he, too, would have said aloud the words that followed him into his dreams.

But the words remained unspoken as the race to find the bomber and the missile plans, to pull a bomb vest off an ex-army doctor and then to shoot the vest and bring down the pool around them swept both of them up.

They both would regret keeping those words locked in their hearts and left unspoken as the three long years of their separation stretched out before them.

 

******

 

 _**10 April 2013** _

They barely made it up the stairs. Sherlock was pressed so close to John (the sensation of having another body to press up against once more was both familiar and foreign and had been longed-for for so long that he couldn’t, wouldn’t be any further from John than was necessary) that they nearly tripped twice on the way up. Once they made it to the top, John, pressed into his, no _their_ , room’s door, fumbled the knob open and pulled Sherlock in, tugging on Sherlock’s trouser buttons as his lover finished unbuttoning John’s shirt.

Finally, _finally_ , they were naked and falling onto the bed, hands roaming over each other’s bodies, learning new scars. John pulled away long enough to get the lube from his nightstand as Sherlock moaned and spread his legs wider in wordless invitation. John’s hands were shaking as he spread the lube on his fingers, tossing the bottle back on the bed as he pressed two fingers gently into Sherlock’s body, groaning as he did at the heat that enveloped his fingers.

Sherlock tossed his head from side to side, lost in sensation, as John carefully worked him open. He reached up and grabbed John’s good shoulder, pulling him down to smear kisses up his throat as he panted, “I can’t wait any longer⎯get inside me, John. Please, I can’t⎯” he whimpered as John reared back.

“Fuck, Sherlock, yes yes yes, just let me⎯” John gently removed his fingers (Sherlock made a displeased whimper at the sudden emptiness inside him) and squeezed more lube on his hand, spreading it efficiently over his cock before casting the bottle aside once more. Sherlock helpfully tilted his hips up as John slowly pressed himself in, hissing in pleasure as he sank in slowly, not stopping until his hips were flush with Sherlock’s. He paused, arms trembling as he propped himself over Sherlock. Sherlock’s own hand was shaking slightly as he reached up and gently encouraged John down onto his elbows so that he could slip his tongue into John’s mouth and breathe in his breath.

They made love with their chests pressed tightly together, forehead to forehead, breathing each other’s air, kissing each other fiercely. John propped himself on one forearm, snaking the other between them to grip Sherlock and stroke him in time with his thrusts. Sherlock came silently, eyes blown wide and locked with John’s as he shook apart. When the fire had passed through his veins, he reached up and pulled John, still thrusting through Sherlock’s aftershocks, into a fierce kiss, as John arched, pressed his hips as tightly as he could to Sherlock’s, and came.

They curled in tightly together, John’s head on Sherlock’s shoulder, as they caught their breath. Sherlock was rubbing his thumb idly over John’s bicep as John gently prodded at the scar from Sherlock’s splenectomy. “When did you get this?” John asked.

Sherlock sighed. “I might as well start from the beginning.”

He told John about Mycroft telling him about John’s death, the time in the safehouse (he glossed over the crushing grief he had felt⎯John understood what Sherlock didn’t say), getting the box of John’s ashes, having DNA tests run, learning that Mycroft was right⎯John was dead. At this, Sherlock’s voice broke, and John held him tightly. When he had recovered his voice, Sherlock said, “I carried that box of your ashes with me everywhere. It was always in my pocket or under my pillow. It was all I had left of you, and I kept it close.”

“Did you talk to me?”

“All the time.”

Sherlock’s narrative took a long time. He stopped his story, finally, just before he found Moran, and looked down at John. “Can I stop for a bit? I’m nearly done, but this last part’s hard to talk about. Tell me about what happened to you. Where have you been for these three years? Here?”

“No, not here. I went to a safe house in Edinburgh, then on to Luton.” He told Sherlock of Mycroft’s visits, of Mycroft’s maddening decision not to tell him where Sherlock was. He glossed over much of those conversations with Mycroft, deciding to save them for later, when they could have Mycroft in front of them and could hash out why the man did this to them. He told Sherlock about the abrupt move from Luton to Guildford, the knowledge that he could have been in danger that had made him suspicious of everyone. He did not tell Sherlock yet about the bees, or that he had been able to keep the house in Guildford. He wanted to surprise Sherlock with his hard work.

“Mycroft gave me your scarf. He sealed it in a plastic bag and I’ve had it with me ever since I got to the safehouse in Edinburgh. I used to take it out of the bag and let myself sniff just one small bit of it before I’d seal it back up again.”

“I’m sorry, John.”

“I think I had it worse than you did, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked down at him in surprise. “Why?”

“Because I was stuck in those houses. I kept thinking I’d hear you in the kitchen, or hear you playing your violin. I even went out and got some CDs and programmed a CD player to come on and play them when I’d come home at night. It helped keep you close to me.”

Sherlock pressed a kiss to John’s forehead and listened to him breathe in the silence.

John stirred after a while and continued, “And then Mycroft came to my door last month and told me he thought you were dead. I refused to believe it until he could show me your body. I insisted on coming back to Baker Street, and so here I am. I’ve been hoping you’d walk in the door every day since I came back here. And now here you are.”

“Here I am.” Sherlock’s stomach rumbled, and John laughed.

“Can you finish your story after supper? I’m starved, too.” John reluctantly rolled out of bed and started pulling his clothes back on. “Chinese?”

Sherlock nodded.

“I’ll run and get takeaway.” John buckled his belt and sat on the bed to pull on his socks.

Sherlock stood and pulled on his own clothes. “I’ll come with you. Don’t really want to let you out of my sight just yet.” Sherlock ducked his head and blushed. “I’m still half-convinced that I’ll wake up and find out this is just a dream.”

John gave him a heartbreaking smile as he stood and said, “This isn’t a dream, Sherlock.”

Sherlock smiled back and said softly, “I know.”

*

After their supper (eaten on the sofa in front of the telly), Sherlock silently cleared up the takeaway containers and brought back two cups of tea. He resettled himself on the sofa, leaning companionably into John’s side. Once the programme John had been watching was over, Sherlock took the cups back into the kitchen and then came back to extend his hand to John, who took it and stood without hesitation.

“I want to tell you the rest of this,” Sherlock said, “before I lose my nerve.” At John’s nod, he turned and headed upstairs, steps heavy on the treads.

John turned off the lamps and checked to see that their door was locked before following Sherlock up the stairs. When he opened the door to their room, Sherlock was just climbing into bed, naked again. He slid under the duvet and looked at John expectantly. John could practically see the tension in Sherlock’s long limbs, so he stripped with alacrity and slipped into bed, pulling Sherlock tightly against his side. Sherlock pushed at John until he was flat on his back so Sherlock could lay his head on John’s bad shoulder. He nuzzled his cheek for a moment against the raised scar tissue as he gathered his thoughts.

“You asked me earlier how I got this,” Sherlock said at last, pressing John’s hand to his splenectomy scar. “But you didn’t ask me how I got this one,” he continued, moving John’s hand lower, running it over the small scar Moriarty had left when he stabbed him at the Falls. “Let me tell you how I got them.”

“It took me until 2012 to get a good lead on Moran, Moriarty’s second-in-command. I followed Moran all over the world; he hid clues and hints in paintings, and I tracked him using those. I nearly had him in Aberdeen in March 2012, but he shot me and got away. The bullet tore up my spleen and nicked the bone in one of my vertebrae. I had a splenectomy and spent a while in hospital in Edinburgh, and then I had to start all over again in my hunt for him. I knew that if I could get to Moran, I could use him to get Moriarty.

“It took me a year to find Moran again. It was the 20th of February of this year, he was in London, and I shot him in the stomach right by the National Gallery. You wouldn’t have been proud of me for what I did to him, John. He wouldn’t tell me anything, so I…stepped on his wound to make him talk. It didn’t work.” He paused, swallowing thickly.

John, breaths steady and slow, said into the darkness, “Sometimes, we have to do things we don’t want to for the greater good. And I think that was one of those times.”

“I only went to your headstone twice,” Sherlock said, apropos of nothing. John flinched at the reminder that to his lover, he had died. “The first time was right after I got out of my safehouse, and the second was right after I killed Moran. I told you on that second visit that I hoped I could see you again when this was all over.”

John pushed himself up on one elbow, staring wide-eyed down at his lover. “Did you mean what I think you meant?”

Sherlock wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Christ, Sherlock⎯” John broke off when he saw the pain Sherlock was hiding deep in his eyes.

Sherlock took a deep breath as John lowered himself back down, stroking one hand through the shorter curls at Sherlock’s nape. “Moriarty sent me a text not long after Moran died; it had the coordinates for Reichenbach Falls, in Merinigen, Switzerland, a date, March 1, and a time, 3.30 PM.

“I went to the Falls, alone. Moriarty was there. He told me…he told me he knew a secret, a secret about you. He told me you were alive⎯I told him he was lying. He stabbed me, but it was a shallow wound, and I pushed him over the cliff. He nearly took me with him, but I managed to keep my balance. I stood at the edge of that cliff for a long time, John, debating with myself on whether or not I should jump. My mission was over, after all⎯you were avenged and I could go follow you into death in peace. That had always been my plan.”

John exhaled softly, and pressed his face into Sherlock’s neck. “How close did you come to jumping? And don’t lie to me, Sherlock, I deserve to know how close I came to losing you.”

“It was a very near thing. Very near.”

Sherlock turned and crushed his face into John’s hair, breathing him in as he fought back tears. John, in turn, mashed his own face into Sherlock’s throat, hot tears dampening his skin. Sherlock forced himself to pull back enough to let John’s short hair brush his lips and chin as he said, “But I stepped back, eventually, because some small part of me said that I owed it to you to make absolutely sure you weren’t alive before I went and did something drastic. So, I took my time coming back to London in case I was being followed. I had just arrived at St. Pancras a few hours before I found you. I wanted to come straight to Baker Street, thinking that if you were still alive, that would be where you were, but I was afraid that Baker Street would be empty, that my small sliver of hope would be dashed, so I wandered around until I came to the park, and well, saw you.”

“And will you stay?” John asked after a long moment.

“Yes. Yes, I will.”

John nodded and curled in tighter, pressing every inch of himself he could into Sherlock’s side. Sherlock abruptly rolled onto his side, holding John securely in his arms as the doctor nuzzled into his chest, breaths slowing until Sherlock felt his lover’s body grow heavy with sleep. He kissed the top of John’s head as lightly as he could and whispered, “I love you” into the air before he let his eyes drift closed and let John’s quiet, steady breathing lull him to the first restful sleep he’d had in three years.

 

part x


	10. Chapter 10

**  
_11 April 2013_   
**

 

John awoke to an empty bed.

His heart plummeted as he squinted against the early morning sun and pressed his hand to Sherlock’s side of the bed. It was cold. _It was real, it had to have been real, I could feel him under me around me he clung to me in the night I could smell him he kept me warm I was always so cold before and I was warm and so it had to have been real it has to have been real_ he thought as he stumbled out of bed and fumbled his pyjama trousers on, clattering barefoot down the stairs, heart pounding wildly in his chest.

 _Please, God, let it have been real_.

He swung around the corner and nearly collapsed to the floor in relief as he caught a glimpse of Sherlock curled tightly into the corner of the sofa, clutching the box of John’s ashes. His lips were moving, but John wasn’t close enough to hear what he was whispering. John’s knees, which had been watery ever since he left their bed, gave out on him and he folded in on himself like a piece of complex origami as he fell to the floor. He leant his head back against the door frame and focused on keeping himself from hyperventilating with relief. He was real. It wasn’t a dream.

John sat on the floor, head tipped back, eyes closed, thanking a God he wasn’t quite sure he had believed in until yesterday that Sherlock was _here_ , for ten minutes before he realised that Sherlock had sunk down next to him, barely brushing his arm against John’s. John shifted closer and laid his head on Sherlock’s shoulder, linking his arm through Sherlock’s elbow. Sherlock rested his head on top of John’s and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of John’s breaths, feeling the soft swell of them against his side as they both reveled in the fact that the other was real and solid and _there_.

Sherlock stirred after half an hour, rubbing his head against John’s to rouse the doctor. John stirred and sighed, reaching down to twine his fingers with Sherlock’s. Sherlock pulled the box of ashes from his dressing gown pocket and placed it reverently in his lap.

“I was telling you about my dreams,” Sherlock said as he brushed one finger along the top of the box. “It’s how I always started my mornings. Hard to break a habit of three years.” He shifted uncomfortably, embarrassed.

John quietly unlaced his fingers from Sherlock’s and clasped his hand over the small box. “You have me now,” he whispered.

“I know.” He pressed a kiss into John’s hair before he added, almost too quietly to hear, “but there are things I can’t quite say to you out loud yet. I will, someday, but not just yet. Do you understand?”

John nodded. He gently disentangled himself so he could look Sherlock in the eye. “I still have trouble believing you’re really here. I keep expecting to wake up and be alone.”

“John⎯”

“I know, I know, it’s stupid and irrational, but like you said, it’s hard to break a three-year habit.”

Sherlock nodded and looked down at the small box John was still holding in one hand. He knew it would take a while for his brain to solidify the connection between John-in-the-box-is-not-reality and the reality of the living, breathing man in front of him. He could not imagine how John must have felt, knowing that he was alive but unable to come and help him. Surely, Mycroft would have had trouble keeping John from following him⎯Mycroft! How could he have forgotten about Mycroft? That smug bastard needed to be paid a visit and get a good punch in the nose, but Sherlock knew he needed some confirmation from John about Mycroft’s actions before he could allot an appropriate amount of anger to his brother.

John heard Sherlock inhale sharply through his nose and looked up at his lover in alarm. “What is it?”

“What exactly did Mycroft tell you during those three years, John?”

John frowned. “I’ve told you all that already. I barely saw him, to be honest. He only came around every once in a while. I know he had me under a pretty tight guard, but that was it.” John’s eyes widened. “Does Mycroft know you’re here?”

Sherlock scrambled to his feet.

“Sherlock! Please tell me you at least told him, or got in a CCTV camera feed, or something, before you found me.”

“Did he take of you, John?” Sherlock was pacing around the sitting room now, one hand scrambling through his hair, eyes flashing with anger as he thought, _if that fat, useless lump who calls himself my brother did not follow through on his promise, he won’t just get a punch⎯I’ll kill him._

“What do you mean?”

“Did. He. Take. Care. Of. You? It’s hardly a difficult question.”

John looked at him, weighing his answer carefully. “He bought both houses and the car I used. He made sure I had jobs that would keep me occupied and that paid me very well. He had an excellent security detail on me, and would occasionally visit in person, or more often, text me, to check on my well-being and tell me you were still alive. So if that counts as ‘taking care of me,’ then yes, he did.”

Sherlock exhaled. Just a punch for Mycroft then.

“Get up,” he said to John, holding out his hand and pulling the doctor up. “Get dressed; we’re going to go see Mycroft.”

 

***

 

Sherlock’s shoulders were tense as he hailed a cab. John tried to put a comforting hand on one of those tense shoulders, but Sherlock shrugged him off. John carefully kept his expression neutral as they slid into the cab; Sherlock was rightly upset with Mycroft, and comfort was not welcome now. They settled into their seats, consciously not touching each other as London slipped past the windows. John’s hands ached to hold Sherlock’s⎯it was almost torture to have held this man in his arms not even an hour ago, breathing in his air, and now not be able to touch him. Rage that he had long since tried to bury deep in his heart began to boil in him. Rage at Mycroft for turning Sherlock into this strange, haunted creature, rage that he had not been allowed to follow Sherlock and help him, rage that he had not been there to save Sherlock from himself.

 _There are things that can be forgiven,_ John thought as he risked a glance at Sherlock’s taut face, _but not this. Never this._

The cab pulled up outside Mycroft’s house in Pall Mall, and Sherlock had thrown money at the driver and slipped out the door nearly before the driver came to a complete stop.

John followed, throwing a hasty apologetic glance at the driver as he slammed his door shut.

Sherlock was already inside Mycroft’s house, slipping noiselessly down the hallway. John trailed a few steps behind, senses on alert for any danger. They had just broken into the house of the man who ran the government, after all; he wouldn’t put it past Mycroft to have the place booby-trapped. The house was eerily quiet and deserted. John let himself relax infinitesimally.

Sherlock stopped just outside a closed set of windowless French doors and rested one slim hand on the brass handle. He glanced at John, who nodded once, and then pushed down, swinging the door open.

Mycroft looked up from his desk. His eyes widened when he saw his brother standing in the doorway vibrating with rage, and his face lost all colour when John, face like a thundercloud, stepped into the room behind Sherlock. Mycroft made an aborted rise from his chair when Sherlock, who had crossed the room before Mycroft could blink, snatched at his brother’s bespoke lapels and hauled him bodily from the chair, slamming him into the wall behind the desk.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sherlock hissed, his face inches from his brother’s. He shook Mycroft as he repeated, “Why didn’t you tell me he was alive? How could you do that to me? How?” He drew back his fist and punched his brother hard, connecting solidly with his nose. He heard the satisfying crunch and smiled a ghastly, shark-like smile.

John’s hand gripped Sherlock’s shoulder and he said, quietly, “Sherlock.”

Sherlock tilted his head toward the sound of John’s voice, not taking his eyes from his brother for a moment.

“Sherlock, let him go.”

Sherlock let go of Mycroft’s lapels and whirled on his heel, breaking John’s grip. He strode to the window and stared out of it, chest heaving with the deep breaths he took in an attempt to contain his rage.

Mycroft straightened his suit, adjusted his tie, and sank down into a chair facing the window. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his nose to staunch the bleeding. John crossed over to him and gently took the handkerchief from him to inspect the damage. “It’s not badly broken,” he said, “but it will bruise. It should heal in a few weeks.” He handed the handkerchief back and stood up, clasping his hands behind his back so that neither Holmes would see his hands were shaking⎯not from trauma, but from suppressed anger.

There was a long silence as the three men waited for someone to break the oppressive tension that hung heavy and thick in the opulent room.

Finally, Mycroft spoke. “I did it because I thought it the best course of action.”

Sherlock spun around. “The best course of action?” he spat, “In what possible way could that have been the best course of action?”

“I have long had contingency plans in action, as you well know, in case of emergency. Those plans were designed to keep you safe at all costs. This particular plan was Project Greenhorn, perhaps the most drastic of all of my plans. I had…modified it slightly once I knew your connection with Doctor Watson was more that I realised it was. Believe me, Sherlock, I do not like causing you pain. I did not make the decision to initiate the Project lightly.”

“So why did you initiate this Project? What was it designed to do?” John asked, cutting off Sherlock’s tirade before it could begin. He wanted answers, dammit. Sherlock’s insults could wait until they had the answers they had come here to get.

Mycroft sighed. “When you and Sherlock began your…partnership, Sherlock came to me and asked me to take care of you if anything should happen to him. This extended to protection, relocation, money, anything. I promised I would do so. I created this Project as a last resort in case you both needed to disappear together. However, after your encounter with Moriarty, I realised Sherlock needed to be on his own to take him down, and as such, the Project was redesigned slightly in order to keep you both as safe as possible. Unfortunately, some deception was involved in this Project, and the result was that one of you had to think the other was deceased. The point of this was so that the other could function without worrying about the health and safety of the presumed deceased and would thus be able to do whatever was necessary. In this case, I chose you, Doctor Watson, to be the deceased because Sherlock needed to be…sufficiently motivated to take down Moriarty.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Sherlock asked.

“It means that you would not have been successful if John had been with you.”

“That’s a load of bollocks and you know it.”

“I told him that countless times over the years,” John broke in. “I tried to get him to tell me where you were, that you needed me, that I could help keep you safe.” John took a deep breath. Sherlock wasn’t going to like this part. “Mycroft said that I would be a liability, that I would distract you.”

Sherlock snorted. “As if you would ever be a distraction, John.”

“My point exactly. Mycroft wouldn’t listen though.”

Mycroft cleared his throat. “However painful it was for you to hear what I had to say during your separation, Doctor Watson, it was just as painful for me to say it to you. But I could not risk losing Sherlock to this Moriarty. And if it was known that you were still alive, Doctor Watson, then you could have been used against Sherlock. Your regard for my brother is quite obvious, and Moriarty would not have hesitated to use you against Sherlock again.”

“We nearly did lose Sherlock,” John snapped. “At the Falls, at the end, he nearly jumped off a cliff because Moriarty was dead and I was avenged and so he thought there was no more left for him here. If I had been there, he never would have had had those thoughts.”

“John⎯” Sherlock sounded pained. “Before Moriarty went over the Falls, he told me that he knew John was alive, and that was the only thing that kept me from leaping down after him. The _only_ thing. And all I had was some slim hope that that bastard hadn’t lied to me. Seeing John in Regent’s Park was quite a shock.”

Mycroft paled again, looking at his brother with badly concealed pain in his eyes. “I knew Moriarty might have known about John⎯it was why we moved him to Guildford. But Robertson told me that he thought you had gone over the Falls with Moriarty.”

“Robertson?” Sherlock asked.

“The tail I had on you. He gave me daily reports on your progress. Without him there to alert us of your gunshot wound, you would have bled to death in Aberdeen.”

“I knew you had to have had a tail on me at least part of the time. You knew far too much about what I had been doing when we met up. Robertson was good, though,” Sherlock said grudgingly. “I never knew he was there.”

Mycroft glared at his brother. “I thought that you were dead, Sherlock. I had to go and tell Doctor Watson that you had gone over the Falls and there was no body. Do you know what he said to me?” Sherlock shook his head. “He said he would not believe you were dead unless I brought him your body. I wish I had had his faith, Sherlock. It was quite a shock to see you standing in my door way.”

Sherlock shot John a small, private smile.

“Speaking of bodies,” John said into the quiet that sank into the room after Mycroft’s last sentence, “how did you manage to get some ashes to match my DNA?”

Mycroft smiled. “It was quite easy, John. My people swept your flat for hair samples. I had your doctors procure me some further samples when you were in hospital. They were cremated and the ashes given to Sherlock. It would have been easier, of course, to have used a substitute, but I did want to be prepared in case Sherlock ran a DNA test outside of a laboratory I could control.”

Sherlock huffed a breath through his nose and turned to face the window again.

John swallowed. “And the headstone?”

“Again, I had to ensure the illusion was complete. I assumed Sherlock would visit it at least once.”

Silence fell again.

Finally, Sherlock growled, “I came here looking for answers, Mycroft, some kind of justification or defence of your actions. You haven’t given me any.”

“Sherlock, I⎯”

Sherlock spun and strode until he was crowding his brother in his chair, cutting him off. “Do you have any idea what you did to me? To John? Do you have any idea how it feels to think the only thing you have left in the world of someone who you…” He broke off, swallowing hard. “Is a box of ashes and a headstone? No, of course you don’t. Of the two of us, Mummy always thought you were the more human, the one who wasn’t emotionally crippled like I was, but she was wrong. No one who claims to be human would have done what you did. No one.”

“Sherlock⎯”

“No. You had your chance, and your explanations fall far short. Thinking you were keeping us safe by separating us, by thinking that you knew what was better for us than John or I did, is not a reason for what you did. You knew full well the consequences of your actions and you went on with this little Project of yours anyway. Why, Mycroft? Do you think so little of me that you assumed I would just carry on as I always did after losing John?”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said in a shaky voice, “I have never thought little of you. I did what I thought was best with the data I had available at the time, and when I realised my data was flawed, it was too late to reverse the decisions I had made. To tell you of this deception before you uncovered it yourself would have, I feared, caused you to come to grievous harm as you would have been distracted from Moriarty and thus vulnerable to him.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “And as both John and I have told you, that idea is preposterous.”

“I see that now. I underestimated you both, and for that, I am sorry.”

Sherlock and John glanced at each other.

“And I am sorry for disrupting your lives in the way that I did. However, I will not be sorry, nor will I apologise for, protecting you both in the way that I swore to do. I fulfilled my promise to Mummy to keep you safe, Sherlock, and I ensured that Doctor Watson was protected as I swore to you, _mon petite frère_. I only hope that one day, both of you might forgive me for what I did to fulfill my duty.”

Sherlock seemed to deflate a little as he looked properly at John for the first time since leaving the cab. Whatever he saw in John’s face made him soften a bit further. Sherlock opened his mouth, closed it again, and then gave Mycroft a brief, jerky nod before leaving the room quietly.

John stirred and made to follow him, but Mycroft’s soft “Doctor Watson, please wait a moment,” stopped him.

The older man stood and opened a drawer in his desk, withdrawing an envelope like the ones that had contained John’s employment contracts. Mycroft held out the envelope. John accepted it wordlessly, feeling the outline of a key as he pushed the envelope, unopened, into his jacket pocket.

“I have sold the house you stayed in in Guildford.”

John looked at him impassively.

“I have taken the liberty of purchasing a more suitable house in Sussex. The envelope in your possession contains the deed and key to the house. I have also had your hives moved there, and have hired someone to take of the bees in your absence. The house is in both your names; it yours to do with as you please. If you wish to sell it, I understand.”

“You can’t buy our forgiveness, Mycroft.”

“I am aware of that, Doctor Watson. It is not forgiveness I seek with giving you both this house. I am merely giving you both a gift I hope will be used in good faith. That is all I ask.”

John pursed his lips and nodded. “Thank you. Good day, Mycroft.”

“Good day, Doctor Watson.”

*

Sherlock was outside, lost in thought and standing as still as a statue, forcing pedestrians to break around him like water on a ship’s prow. John walked up and slid his hand into Sherlock’s. “You know,” John said as he held out his free arm to flag down a taxi, “I do now own a car, which we could have taken here.”

Sherlock came back to himself with a shake of his head. “I had forgot about that,” he said ruefully. They climbed into the cab and spent the ride back to Baker Street in silence.

After they had shed their coats, John pulled Sherlock down onto the sofa and settled him against his side, sliding one arm around Sherlock’s slim waist. He buried his nose in Sherlock’s curls and breathed deeply, letting the hand curled around Sherlock’s hip trace random patterns over the hard bone. Sherlock, for his part, rested one hand idly on John’s denim-clad thigh and tucked his own legs up onto the sofa. He turned his head until his cheek was pressed into John’s cardigan and closed his eyes. He wanted to re-learn the sound of John’s heartbeat, the feel of John’s chest rising and falling with each breath he took. Three years without hearing the soft, steady sounds of John’s body working to keep him alive had been an unbearable torment, and he felt his anger at Mycroft for denying him the chance to hear John’s wonderful, brave, loyal, kind heart beating in his ear every night rise in him again. But he kept silent, unwilling to give up the sound of John’s heart thundering in his chest just yet.

John had just about dozed off when Sherlock broke their comfortable silence.

“I don’t know if I can ever forgive him, John.”

John let out a careful breath. “You don’t have to, Sherlock. To be honest, I don’t know if I will ever forgive him, either. All I will say is he did fulfill his promise to you⎯I was always safe, and for that, I am grateful.”

“Mmm.” Sherlock pressed closer, letting the sound of John’s breath in his lungs lull him into a doze.

John moved his hand into Sherlock’s curls and stroked his scalp, looking over the detective’s head at his own battered jacket. He wouldn’t tell Sherlock about the house in Sussex or the bees; not yet, anyway. When the time was right, when Sherlock was ready to hear about Mycroft’s gift, then he would say something. But not before.


	11. Chapter 11

**_5 June 2013_ **

John slammed the door to the flat as he helped Sherlock, who was still bleeding from the knock on the head he had received from the suspect they cornered, up the stairs. Depositing Sherlock on the sofa, John went for his medical kit and some clean towels. When he returned to the sitting room, Sherlock had his face buried in his hands. John rushed over to his side, panic flaring in his chest.

“Sherlock? Sherlock, talk to me. What hurts?”

Sherlock mumbled something that sounded like “Everything.”

John sat back on his heels and smiled a bit. “If everything hurt, I’d have sent you to hospital. Is it just your head? You don’t have but a very mild concussion, but I’ll wager your head is hurting something fierce. Let me see.”

Sherlock raised his head briefly. John flashed a penlight in his eyes to check pupil reactions⎯a little slower than normal, but not much. “Looks fine. Let’s get you cleaned up and then we can go to bed, if you want.”

“I’m so tired, John,” Sherlock muttered as John expertly scrubbed at his face to clear off the worst of the blood so he could assess the damage.

“I’ll be done in just a moment, and we can go to bed. It’s been days since you last slept properly⎯I’d be surprised if you weren’t tired.” He gently applied a few butterfly bandages to the gash on Sherlock’s forehead and pressed a kiss to the side of the cut. “Done.”

Sherlock held John’s gaze as the doctor drew back. John settled back on his heels, looking back at him, brow furrowed in concern. “Sherlock, what is it?”

“I’m not just physically tired, John. I mean I’m…” he bit his lip, searching for the right words. “I feel like I’ve wound myself up so much that I can’t even relax anymore. Ever since I came back, it’s just been case after case and no time to just…be. I never thought I’d say this, but I _want_ to be bored, just for a few days. I’ve been going nonstop for over three years, John, and I don’t think I know how to just…stop.”

John gently curled his arms around Sherlock and felt the fine tremors running under his lover’s skin. “Shhh…” he breathed as Sherlock clenched his fists into John’s shirt. “Let’s go away, just for a little while. Just you and me. No cases, no phone calls or texts, no chases or fights, just us. How does that sound?”

Sherlock took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded.

John thought about the envelope he had received from Mycroft, of the Sussex cottage he had not seen, and said, “I know just where to go.”

 

*******

 

 **_8 June 2013_ **

Of course, they hadn’t been able to leave straightaway. John needed to get the time off from Bart’s, he and Sherlock had to give statements on the case that had resulted in Sherlock’s head injury, they had to pack. John made a call to Mycroft to ask that the cottage be stocked for their arrival.

But now they were in the car, and John was driving them to their house in Sussex. The silence in the car was almost unnerving⎯John was nervous because he didn’t know how Sherlock was going to react to the house that had been kept a secret, and there was something else. Ever since Sherlock had come back, they had hardly had any time to be alone together. John was busy at Bart’s, Sherlock, after informing the Yard that he was not, in fact, dead, was gone constantly on cases. John came along when he could, but his shifts at the hospital left him little time. As a result, they had not had the time to reconnect with each other, to fully deal with what they wanted, where they wanted to go with their relationship. And that time apart and the lack of time to really _communicate_ their wants and desires had made them almost awkward with each other, and John hated it.

Sherlock had been almost skittish around John ever since they left Mycroft’s house. They slept in the same bed, had sex (only a handful of times⎯they were both always too tired), and cuddled in front of the telly on the rare times they were in the flat at the same time for long enough to do so, but John couldn’t find a way to start a conversation about the things they really needed to talk about, and every time he tried, Sherlock’s mobile buzzed and they were off on a case.

And now they were going on holiday, and John was _nervous._ He’d never been nervous around Sherlock before, and he knew that his tension was affecting his lover, who was sitting hunched up in his seat, staring moodily out the window. John didn’t think Sherlock was even registering the countryside that flew by them. Sherlock had not even asked where they were going, or tried to deduce it, which worried John immensely.

A subtle movement caught John’s eye. Sherlock was rubbing one hand absently over a small bulge in his trouser pocket⎯a bulge that was the same shape as the box of his ashes Sherlock had carried for three years. John viciously bit the inside of his cheek to keep his expression under control. He thought Sherlock had stopped carrying that around weeks ago.

But something must have triggered Sherlock’s John-sense because the detective looked over at him and frowned slightly. “What is it, John?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing.”

“It’s obviously something, John, or you wouldn’t have that look on your face, nor would you be avoiding answering my question.”

John waited a beat and blurted, “I’m worried about us.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he closed his eyes for a split second in disgust at himself for not keeping himself under control before staring resolutely out at the road spooling out in front of him.

Sherlock turned in his seat a bit in order to see John more clearly before he said sharply, “What do you mean?”

John bit his lip as he considered his response. “I just feel like we’re drifting away from each other. I know we don’t get to spend as much time together as we’d like to, and what time we do spend together is usually on a case, but I miss⎯” He swallowed thickly, the lump in his throat too great to speak around.

Sherlock closed his eyes. “John,” he whispered, “John, please believe me when I say to you that we are not drifting apart. I know I’ve been…distant, more distant than usual, and I am sorry for that. There are things I’ve been thinking about ever since I returned, and I haven’t quite felt ready to discuss them yet.”

John’s breath caught in relief, the tension in his chest and shoulders easing somewhat. “Sherlock⎯”

Sherlock cut him off. “Please, I promise I will discuss those things when we get where we’re going. Don’t ask me to talk about it just yet, please.”

John glanced over at him. Two pleases in a row⎯he must be serious. John tried rather badly to change the subject, asking, “Do you know where we’re going? I’m shocked you haven’t deduced it from my shoelaces, or something.” He cracked a wan smile, which Sherlock returned.

“Somewhere in Sussex,” he declared, glancing out at the passing scenery. “Somewhere on the Downs, near Eastbourne, I’d say.”

John smiled. “No exact location?”

“I rather like the surprise.”

John settled back and took one hand from the wheel, gently lacing his fingers through Sherlock’s. Sherlock stroked his thumb over the back of John’s hand and returned to gazing out the window.

This time, though, the silence in the car was comfortable and easy.

*

Sherlock had long since nodded off by the time John pulled to a stop in front of their cottage. He sat for a moment and just looked around. The cottage was isolated⎯the driveway had been half-obscured by brush and, once he had turned into it, he found it was long and twisted. A small part of the driveway was covered in an archway made by trees. The cottage itself was large, at least from the outside. A wild tangle of shrubs and flowers were a riot of colour in front of the house. The cottage itself was white; the front door was a faded red. Lots of windows, John thought as he glanced at Sherlock, still asleep, leaning against the car window.

He gently shook Sherlock’s shoulder. “Hey, we’re here.”

Sherlock shook himself awake and sat up straighter, sharp eyes cataloguing the same details John had. Sherlock frowned for a moment. “It looks abandoned. Did you rent it from someone?”

“Ah, no.” John squirmed a little. He really should have told Sherlock far before this, but he thought if he waited until they were here, then Sherlock wouldn’t be able to run away. “It’s actually ours.”

Sherlock whipped his head around to stare at John. “What do you mean, ours?”

“It’s ours, Sherlock; we own it. Here, I have the key.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why didn’t you tell me you had bought a cottage in Sussex?”

John would not meet his eye.

“Ah,” Sherlock said, mind whirling with observations, “Mycroft.”

John nodded. Sherlock pursed his lips and looked back out at the cottage.

“He let me keep the house I had in Guildford,” John said after a minute. “But when you and I went to…talk to him after you came back, he told me he had sold that house and gave me an envelope with the key and the deed to this cottage. Both our names were on the deed. I told him he couldn’t buy our forgiveness, but all he said was that he hoped we would use his gift.”

Sherlock said nothing.

“If you don’t like it, or if you don’t want to stay here, then we can leave. Sell it. It’s no matter to me.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

Sherlock _looked_ at him. Suddenly, John remembered a conversation they’d had three years ago, just before both their worlds came crashing down on them: Sherlock wanted a cottage in Sussex and wanted to keep bees. John closed his eyes. _Shit,_ he thought, _how could I have forgotten that he said he wanted to live in Sussex? Good one, Watson, you remember the bees and the cottage but not Sussex?_

“I can tell from your panic that you said nothing to Mycroft about what we talked about.”

John banged his head against the head rest.

“John? John!” Sherlock shook him gently. “Stop that. I’m not upset, truly.”

John cracked open one eye and peered at Sherlock. He didn’t look upset. John opened his other eye and smiled softly. “Want to go see it?” He waggled the key in front of Sherlock, who rolled his eyes at John’s quiet enthusiasm.

“I still haven’t forgiven him.”

“I know.”

“I’m not telling him thank you.”

“Neither did I.”

Sherlock grinned at him as he opened the car door.

*

The cottage was larger than his house in Guildford had been, John noted. Mycroft had moved most of the furniture from that house to here⎯it was jarring to see reminders of his long, lonely vigil here with Sherlock next to him. _We might have to sell the furniture,_ John thought as he shivered. Sherlock noticed and rubbed John’s back soothingly before heading down the hallway to the bedroom. John followed him, noting with relief that at least Mycroft had sent a new bed and bedlinens. Sherlock deposited his bag on the bed and poked through the room, picking up the telly remote and setting it down, opening the bureau drawers, flicking the lamp on and off again.

John smiled at him and drew him close, trapping Sherlock’s arms in a hug. John nuzzled into Sherlock’s chest and breathed, “I’ve missed you. You’ve been right here with me but I still miss you.”

“I know. I’m sorry, John. It was⎯difficult for me to adjust to being around people again, to be around you again. I kept myself up nights just watching you sleep because I was afraid if I closed my eyes, you’d disappear.”

“Sherlock⎯” John pulled back and drew his lover down for a kiss.

Sherlock’s nimble fingers undid the buttons on John’s shirt, slipping his hand in to feel John’s heart pounding against his palm. “Take me to bed, John,” Sherlock whispered into John’s mouth. “Prove to me that you’ll never disappear again.”

“I won’t, Sherlock, I won’t ever again, I promise, I promise, I swear it to you,” John mumbled into Sherlock’s neck as he undressed his lover and pressed him to the bed.

*

When Sherlock stirred from his doze, still naked and pressed so close to John that not even air could get between them, he looked down at the top of John’s head and kissed it, once, twice, three times before just pressing and holding his lips there, breathing softly through his nose. He thought of the box he had carried with him, the one he had had the foresight to tuck into his pocket when John wasn’t looking, and smiled. He wanted to tell John everything he hadn’t said⎯all the things he’d been telling John’s memory for three years but hadn’t had the courage to say to John’s face yet.

Just as Sherlock was about to shake John awake so he could tell him everything, John snuffled and rubbed his cheek into Sherlock’s chest before pulling away and blinking sleepily up at the detective.

“Hullo,” John murmured, kissing Sherlock gently.

“Hello.”

John rolled away and got up, holding out his hand to Sherlock. “Get up. Get dressed; I have a surprise for you.”

“Another one?”

“Yes, another one. Get dressed!” John was already buttoning his jeans as Sherlock languidly rose and stretched, noting that John paused in his buttoning to stare at him and lick his lips greedily.

Sherlock smirked and stretched again, causing John to blink and shake his head, firmly doing up the last button. “Later, Sherlock. Hurry up!” John was practically bouncing on his heels as Sherlock pulled on his clothes.

As soon as the last button was buttoned, John seized his hand and pulled him down the hallway and through the kitchen, pulling up at the kitchen door. If Mycroft had moved the hives, as he said he had, then they should be in the back garden. He couldn’t check, though, without tipping Sherlock off. John turned to Sherlock, a mischievous grin lighting up his face. Sherlock smiled back at him.

“Close your eyes,” John said.

Sherlock, still smiling, let his brow crease a bit, just to tease John, who was so endearingly _anxious_ that he couldn’t help but tease.

“Please?”

Sherlock, smile firmly in place, closed his eyes.

“And keep them closed.” John twitched the curtain that covered the door’s window and smiled when he saw the hives off in the distance. He opened the door, and with a glance behind him to make sure Sherlock’s eyes were still shut, pulled Sherlock through the door and guided him down the path to stop just far enough from the hives that the buzzing was barely audible.

“We’re here. Keep your eyes closed!” John said quickly as he turned to face Sherlock, holding both his hands tightly.

“You’re nervous,” Sherlock said. “Your hands are sweaty, your breathing more rapid, your pulse fast. Why are you nervous, John?”

“Because I’m afraid you’re going to think me a fool.”

“John, I would never think that of you. Tell me what’s got you so nervous.”

John ducked his head, lightly swinging their clasped hands. “I was bored a few years ago, and I did some research, and well…dammit, just open your eyes and see.”

He stepped aside and Sherlock opened his eyes and gasped.

There were _bees._ John had started hives, three of them, in fact, and there were bees and this was wonderful, John was amazing to give him this.

John was watching his face. “Do you like them?” he asked, almost shyly.

“John, you are…you are a marvel.” Sherlock swooped down and kissed him deeply, ignoring the fat bumblebees that flitted past his head. When they parted for air, Sherlock said, “I am literally lost for words. You are far too good to me.”

John blushed and smiled. “Go on, go investigate.”

Sherlock pulled him to the first hive, inspecting the comb, searching for and pointing out the queen. John nodded and added some information of his own⎯where the hives had come from, where he had gotten the bees from (apparently, the Guildford postmaster had not been happy when the bees arrived in the post), how he had cared for them.

“It made me feel closer to you,” John admitted. “I remembered you saying you wanted to keep bees, and so I started learning all I could and set up my own hives. When I moved to Guildford, I had Mycroft make sure I had a garden for the bees. And when Mycroft sold the house in Guildford and bought this one, he transferred the hives here. He hired someone to take care of them when we’re not here.”

Sherlock’s face crinkled into a complicated expression John couldn’t quite parse.

“I did this for you,” John continued in a whisper, words tumbling out in a rush of embarrassment, “because I hoped that one day, you’d get to see them for yourself.”

Sherlock gave him one of his private, small smiles, one that only John ever got to see, and reached out to cup John’s face with one long hand. “It’s the best gift anyone’s ever given me,” he said gravely, “and I’m glad it was given to me by you.”

John flushed again and turned his face so he could kiss Sherlock’s palm, closing his eyes as Sherlock gently stroked his temple.

Seeing John so vulnerable, laid out in front of Sherlock, offering him this wonderful, unprecedented gift, this unspoken promise of a life together, a promise made by John giving him both the bees and the cottage by the sea he had wanted, made the words Sherlock had been saying to John’s ghost for three years burn in his chest. He had to say them. Now. His mouth opened, but he blanched suddenly as a wave of nerves crashed over him. He froze, unable to move past the paralysing fear of rejection, of changing his life forever with a few simple words that he wanted to say so badly.

John’s eyes widened in alarm. “Sherlock?”

“I’m fine,” Sherlock croaked.

“You’re paler than I’ve ever seen you, and you’re shaking, so no, you’re not fine.”

Sherlock noticed that his hand, still cupping John’s face, was trembling minutely. This was new. Sherlock glared at his hand, willing it to stop trembling. John’s hand came up to cover it, and then carefully pulled it away from his face and clasped it gently in his own. Interesting. As soon as John’s smaller hand touched his own, his hand became as steady as a rock. Sherlock smiled. John was staring at him, confused.

“Let’s get you sitting down,” John said, leading him over to a small bench and pushing at him until he gave in and sank down as slowly as if he had been falling through treacle. John sat next to him, facing him, brow still furrowed in concern.

“Are you all right? You’re still quite pale. Any dizziness? Nausea? Headache?”

“John.” _Yes, that was a good start. John’s name feels so good to say. I could say it forever: JohnJohnJohnJohnJohnJohnJohnjohnjohnjohnjohn. Maybe I will get to say it forever. I want to say it forever. The only thing better than saying John would be saying Sherlock and John, no, SherlockandJohn, that’s better. The way it should be. The way it should always have been._

“John,” he repeated, “I need to tell you what I’ve been promising to say ever since I came back.”

John shifted so he could look Sherlock in the eyes as his lover gently covered his hands with his own.

Sherlock took a deep breath and said, “You know I’m not good at expressing how I feel. I’ve struggled for months to figure out how to say this to you. I told your box over and over, nearly every day, what I’m trying to tell you now, but I’m finding it hard with you here now, where I can look at you and touch you.”

John smiled softly. “Do you want me to turn around?”

“Never.” Sherlock’s hands gripped John’s in reflex, physically holding him in place. They sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments, listening to the bees buzzing around their hives before Sherlock took another deep breath and said, “I love you.”

John’s breath left him in a whoosh as he grinned so hard he thought his face would break from the force of it. “I love you, too,” he breathed, surging forward to capture Sherlock’s mouth in a fierce, deep kiss. When they broke apart, gasping for breath, John grinned and said, “I’ve wanted to say that for years. Don’t know why I haven’t said it before now.”

Sherlock grinned back, squeezing John’s hands tightly, feeling giddy. “You’ve been saying it to me for years, John, just not out loud. This?” Sherlock untangled one hand to wave it in the air, encompassing the cottage and the bees, “is just one of the ways you’ve been saying it. Do you know what today has shown me?”

“What?”

“That this is a promise fulfilled, John. You asked me, on our last night together before everything fell apart, what I wanted. Do you remember what I told you?”

John’s eyes were wide, his breaths shallow as he nodded. “Tell me again,” he breathed. “I want to hear it again.” He blinked back tears as he gripped Sherlock’s hands tightly enough to hurt.

Sherlock relished the pain, returning John’s vice-like grip. “I said I want it to be you and me, together at the end of the day. I want to come home to you at night and wake up next to you in the morning. I want to know how many wrinkles you’ll have when you’re eighty. I want….I want everything you are willing to give me, John. No matter how much or how little that may be. I want to keep you with me, for as long as I can.”

John mouthed the words along with him, eyes shining with unshed tears. Sherlock blinked back unexpected tears as he forced his question through his suddenly choked-up throat: “Do you remember what you said in return?”

John’s smile was _devastating_. “I said I want that, too. I said that we’ll keep each other forever.”

“And then I said that you couldn’t promise that, John. I said no one can have forever.”

“And I will reply as I did then: I can and I will promise that,” John whispered fiercely as he clenched Sherlock’s hands even tighter. “I said, we will have it, we will.”

Sherlock swallowed thickly. “That’s what I want to make certain of, John. I want this forever, and I want to have it with you. John, will you⎯” He broke off, unable to speak for the tears of joy clogging his throat.

John was crying openly, a few tears winding their way down his face, knuckles white where they gripped Sherlock’s hands. “Finish that sentence, you mad bastard, or I swear I’ll…I’ll…”

“Will you marry me?” Sherlock rushed out, nearly choking on his own breath.

“Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Oh, God, Sherlock, yes, I will.”

Sherlock leaned forward and kissed John more deeply than he ever had before. John finally let go of Sherlock’s hands and reached up to cup Sherlock’s face between his palms, holding him there as he devoured Sherlock’s mouth. John wanted to press himself inside this wonderful man and never let him go. They parted with great reluctance, still peppering small, brief kisses to each other’s lips and cheeks as they whispered their affirmations over and over, breathing _yes yes yes yes always yes_ between kisses.

Finally, Sherlock leaned back and dug around in his pocket, bringing out a small box. He shyly held it out to John, stammering a bit as he said, “I know it’s not traditional for men to wear engagement rings, but I couldn’t wait any longer to give you this. There’s one for me, too.”

John took the box and opened it, fingers trembling slightly. He looked up at Sherlock as he gently ran his finger over the two rings in the box, gently pulling out the smaller of the two rings before he set the box down carefully. He held out his hand and smiled when Sherlock gave his left hand, fingers spread. John carefully worked the simple white gold band onto Sherlock’s finger and then stroked the ring with his thumb over and over after it was where it belonged. He couldn’t stop staring at it⎯it looked so _right_ on Sherlock’s finger.

Sherlock took the other ring from the box and gently slid it onto John’s finger. His ring was also white gold, but it had a small brushed white gold band in the middle, surrounded by polished white gold. “This was my grandfather’s ring,” Sherlock said as John admired it. “It was to be given to who ever married first. It suits you.”

“It’s lovely. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything. Just, everything.” John smiled, a few more tears slipping down his face. “I never thought I would be happy or whole until I met you, and now I have everything I could ever possibly dream of wanting. I cannot thank you enough for that, Sherlock. Never could I thank you enough.”

“I could and will say the same to you.”

“I know.”

John turned and tucked himself into Sherlock’s side, curling into him as tightly as he could. Sherlock pulled him in even closer, wrapping one arm around his back and resting his hand on John’s hip. Together, they watched the bees fly until the sun set.

Sherlock stood and held his hand out to John. “Come with me?” he whispered, not wanting to break the anticipatory mood that had settled over them as they had sat on the bench.

John stood and placed his hand in Sherlock’s, running his finger over the ring he’d placed on his hand. “Always, love. Never doubt that.”

They walked into their home hand-in-hand, letting the door shut out the sound of the bees.

 

 

**⎯Epilogue⎯**

 

 **_21 June 2014_ **

Sherlock straightened his tie and adjusted the lapels of his suit for the tenth time in an hour.

“Your suit is fine,” Mycroft said, stepping through the doorway of the cottage.

Sherlock turned and gave his brother a shadow of his usual sneer.

“John is as nervous as you are,” Mycroft added, leaning on his umbrella.

Sherlock’s face lit up at the mention of John’s name. “Where is he?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

The light went out of Sherlock’s in a flash. Mycroft winced as he realised what he had said. “I’m sorry, Sherlock.” He said for the thousandth time since Sherlock had returned.

But instead of his usual snort of derision, Sherlock reached out and briefly clasped his brother’s shoulder. “I forgive you.”

Mycroft’s eyes closed in relief as his posture relaxed slightly for the first time in a year. “Thank you, Sherlock,” he said softly.

Sherlock nodded. “Thank you for this,” he said suddenly, waving a hand in a gesture meant to encompass the cottage, the bees, the wedding.

“It’s the least I could do.” Mycroft pulled out his pocketwatch and glanced at the time. “It’s time, Sherlock,” he said gently.

Sherlock blew out a deep breath and squared his shoulders. Mycroft gave him a brief hug and took his leave.

Sherlock followed him after a minute, taking the time to let the reality of what he was about to do sink in.

He smiled and opened the door, walking down the garden path between the hives to meet his John, who was looking at him as if he was the only person in the world.

Sherlock forced himself to walk slowly, eyes locked on John’s. When he finally was standing next to John, he reached out and took John’s hand, clasping it tightly. John looked up and whispered, “Hullo, love.”

“Hello.”

*

Sherlock would, in later years, never clearly remember the ceremony. What he did remember, in vivid detail, was what happened after:

After the reception, after everyone had left, John led him to the bench on which Sherlock had proposed and sank down, pulling Sherlock down to sit next to him. Just as he had on the day Sherlock proposed, John tucked himself into Sherlock’s side, but this time, he pressed kisses to Sherlock’s neck, cheeks, lips, and whispered his vows to Sherlock once more.

 _I, John Hamish Watson, take you, Sherlock Holmes, to be my husband. I swear to love you and honour you with every fibre of my being for the rest of my days. I promise you forever, and we will have it. I promise to run beside you always and to keep you safe from harm. I will never leave you behind, never. You have my heart, Sherlock, and I am yours._  
Sherlock took a deep, shuddering breath as John finished and pressed one last devastatingly gentle kiss to his lips.

Sherlock leaned down and whispered his own vows into John’s ear as he pulled John into his chest and kissed him between each sentence.

 _I, Sherlock Holmes, take you, John Hamish Watson, to be my husband. I swear to love you and honour you with every fibre of my being until the end of my days. I promise that I will always stand beside you, no matter what happens. I swear that I will endeavour to keep you safe from harm, for the thought of you being hurt does not bear thinking about. I will never leave you behind, nor shall I ever let you be left behind. I promise you that we will have our forever, for I am nothing without you beside me._

When he finished, he ran his fingers under John’s eyes, gently wiping away the tears that had fallen before pressing a tender kiss to his lips.

“Forever, John.”

John gave him a watery smile. “Forever.”

⎯Fin⎯


End file.
